
.^IM**-' 




I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

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^^ 

•:•) .... 

^UNiTED STAil'S OF AMEIIICA.S 

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EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITi : 



COUESE OF LECTUEES 

DELIVEEED IN DUNDEE DUEING 1S48-9, 



KEY. W. WILSON, FEEE CHUECH: A. HANXAY, INDEPENDENT CHURCH; 
AND J. E. M'GAYIN, UNITED PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH, 



DUNDEE : 

WILLIAM MIDDLETON, 64 HIGH STREET. 

JOHN ROBERTSON, DUBLIN : W. M'COMB, BELFAST; HAMILTON, ADAMS 
AND CO., AND J. NISBET AND CO., LONDON. 

1849. 






' ^^-^i^a-s, DcvDEfr. 



The Library 
OF Congress 



WASHINGTON 



INTEODIJCTION 



The course of Lectures which is now presented to the 
public in a collected form was originally delivered at the 
request of a gentleman who, having forirred some acquaint- 
ance with the state of feeling among persons who rejected 
the doctrines of the Bible, was convinced that an able and 
candid discussion of the Evidences for the Truth of Chris- 
tianity would be productive of many good results. He 
knew that many of the working-classes were prejudiced 
against the reception of religious truth by an idea that 
pious men were opposed to free enquiry, and therefore they 
did not examine its evidences with that impartiality to 
which it is entitled. He was also aware that, though the 
doctrines and precepts of Christianity are very fully taught, 
yet their divine origin, and the evidences on which they 
are grounded, have not been brought forward so promin- 
ently as their importance requires. He applied for the 
assistance of only three lecturers, deeming that the con- 
nection and unity of the contemplated course would be 
more successfully makitained by entrusting it to a limited 
number. The readiness with which these gfentlemen under- 



IV PREFACE. 

took, and the ability with which they have executed, the 
July imposed upon them, demand his warmest acknowledg- 
ments. 

There are, of com-se, no data upon which to estimate the 
amount of good that may have resulted from these Lectures. 
But there are reasons for believing that they have produced 
salutary and abiding impressions upon not a few minds. 
They must, at least, have furnished many imperfectly- in- 
formed Christians with reasons for the beliefs which they 
profess ; and have con\dnced sceptics that Christianity has 
the weightiest arguments to offer in her defence, and com- 
mands the advocacy of the highest and best cultivated 
minds. They have been listened to with an intelligent 
attention, and with a thirst for truth highly characteristic 
of the Scottish mind. 

It appears very desirable that systematic attempts should 
be made, by public lectures and otherwise, to educate the 
working- classes in the true principles of abstract discussion, 
as well as to acquaint them fully with the various lines of 
evidence which combine to prove the tinith of Christianity. 
The popular lectures of the day are excellent of their kind ; 
their object, however, is the communication of a little 
scientific knowledge rather than the training of the hearers 
to habits of close and frequent thought. A series of Lec- 
tures upon Moral Philosophy, or upon the Analogies be- 



PREFACE. V 

tween Natural and Revealed Religion, or some other 
department of the Christian Evidences, would not only 
acquaint the audience with a highly important class of 
truths, but would elevate the taste of many, and lead them 
into regions of higher contemplation than they had previ- 
ously been accustomed to. 

Perhaps a future course may, by a very small payment, 
be rendered self-supporting, and thus be a precedent to 
others to follow in the same course of popular instruction. 
The gentleman who originated these Lectures will be glad 
to receive hints from the classes whom he professes to bene- 
fit respecting the subjects which are likely to be interesting, 
and the manner in which they should be conducted. 

Dundee, 1st March 1849. 



CONTENTS. 



Lecture I. — Eev. W. Wilson. Page 

Introductory Lecture — Man's Eesponsibility, a 

Lecture II. — Eev. A. Hannay. 
On the InimortalitY of Man, 21 

Lecture III. — Eev. ^y. Yv^ilsox. 
Man's Eesponsibility (Continued) with Special Eeference to the 

" Social Bible" of Eobert Owen, iS 

Lecture IV. — Eev. W. Wilson. 
On the Character of God, as Delineated in the Bible; and Com- 
pared with the views of the Divine Nature entertained by the 
most Learned Philosophers of Ancient and Modern Times, .... 65 

Lecture V.— Eev- J. E. M'Gavin. 
On the Character of Jesus Christ as Eevealed in the Prophetical 
Books of the Old Testament, and fully Unfolded in the New 
T estament, , 85 

Lecture VI.— Eev. J. E. M'Gavin. 
On the Morality of the New Testament, in its Superiority to the 

Defective Systems of Men, * 102 

Lecture VI L— Eev. A. Hannay. 

On the Necessity of a Divine Eevelation, communicating the In- 
troduction of Moral Evil into the World, and the Eeniedy pro- 
vided by God by means of a Mediator for the Salvation of Man, 
and for his Eestoration to Holiness and Happiness, 126 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Lecture VIII. — Rev. A. Hannay. 

On the Eternal Duration of Future Punishments, l'^^* 

Lecture IX. — Eev. J. E. M'Gavin. 
On the Moral and Social Benefits of Christianity, 174 

Lecture X. — Rev. W. Wilson. 

On the Testimony of the Apostles for the Truth of Christianity,.. . 201 

Lecture XI. — Rev. \Y. Wilson. 
On the Evidence from .Miracles. 229 

Lecture XII. — Rev. W. Wilson. 
On the Evidence from Prophecy, and especially from the Fulfilment 
of the Prophecies concerning Christ, the Dispersion and Exist- 
ence of the Jews in a separate state, the Destruction of Jerusa- 
lem by the Romans, and Antichrist, 2>5 

Lecture XIII. — Rev. A. Hannay. 
Evidences of Christianity : Argument from its Origin and Success, 2-^4 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTlANITi, 



LECTURE I. 



MAN'S EESPONSIBILITY. 

BY THE REV. WILLIAM WILSON, 



In these Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, it is our 
purpose to speak to you as intelligent men — capable of rea- 
son, and not unwilling to exercise it. This is implied in the 
very title of our Lectures. For evidence is always a direct 
appeal to the reason of man, and the adducing of it is nothing 
else than to demand that he searches and proves it, whether 
it be sufficient to bear out the conclusions which are made to 
rest upon it. It is to reasonable men that Christianity ad- 
dresses itself. It asks of no one a blind and unintelligent 
assent. The faith which it claims is not only in conformity 
with our moral and intellectual faculties, but in its operation 
implies the habitual exercise of them. 

In thus speaking as unto wise men, we, of course, ask your 
judgment on what we say. We address you for the purpose 
of awakening your attention, and inducing you to weigh the 
evidence we adduce. We ask you to believe nothing simply 
because we assert it to be so. We ask you to believe every- 
thing which we shall prove to be true, and in doing so we 
merely ask you to act as reasoning men, for it is the highest 
property of reason to yield its assent to competent proof. 
Mere unbelief does not imply intelligence. It may and ofcen 
does imply nothing more than ignorance. Resistance to evi- 

NO. I 



Z EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

deuce — the mere declaration that a proof is insufficientj does 
not argue the highest wisdom. It may argue nothing more 
than obstinacy, or at best an incapacity of apprehending the 
nature of the proof adduced. It was thus, for example, with 
the science of Astronomay. It was not because the men of 
Galileo's day were possessed of superior information that they 
refused to believe the fact of the Earth's revolution on its 
axis, but because they mistook what was apparent for that 
which was real. Incredulity is not in any age the test of 
wisdom. 

You are not to infer that we presume you to be in this 
state of mind. We are necessarily in a state of comparative 
ignorance of your actual beliefs, the grounds of them, the 
extent of j^our knowledge, and the disposition or capacity you 
may have to examine and to weigh the evidence that may be 
subroitted to you. But just because we do not know these 
things, and presuming upon the probability that you by no 
means all stand on the same level in these respects, it is in- 
cumbent on us to start from the lowest conceivable basis ; on 
the one hand, to meet the case of those who may occupy the 
lowest possible place in the scale of belief, and on the other, 
to assert and vindicate the first principles on which depend 
oar conscious relations to God, and the sense of duty we owe 
to Him. Christianity itself demands of us to be able to ren- 
der to every one a reason of the hope that is in us, and this 
demand applies not only to the reasons that may be assigned 
for regarding' the Bible as in its whole statements of truth 
Vv'orthy of all acceptation, but inasmuch as the fact of a reve- 
lation presupposes the existence of a God, it applies also to the 
evidence on which the Being of God is proved, a;:d to the fact 
of our occupying a certain relation of duty and responsibility 
to Him. 

But, while asserting this, we by no means convict those 
who have believed, without the investigation of such evidences 
as we mean to adduce in these lectures, of an unreasoning and 
mere superstitious assent to truths in favour of which they 
have no evidence. On the contrary, the most comprehensive, 
as well as the most conclusive evidences, both of the being of 
a God and of the truth of revelation, lie within the compass 
of the Bible itself, and are involved in the very nature of the 



MA^'S RESPONSIBILITY. 3 

communications which are made in it. That man would not 
be regarded as irrational and superstitious who concluded, 
Irom what he saw and learned of the manifold and wondrous 
adaptations which prevail in the physical universe, that it had 
an intelligent maker. But neither is the man to be regarded 
as the mere slave of superstition who shall conclude, from the 
observed and felt adaptations to the moral wants of his nature 
which are contained in the statements of the Bible, that it too 
had an author who could be no other than God. The character 
of Bible truth may be such that it shall most intelligently con- 
vince the man who reads it that no other than God could make 
such statements, and that, consequently, he is bound to regard 
it as a revelation of his will. I am so fully persuaded that 
such is actually the character of Bible truth that, to those who 
may doubt either the fact of God's existence or the fact that 
he has made a revelation of his will to man, I can recommend 
no course at all so conclusive and satisfactory for arriving at 
a solution of these grave questions as an attentive, patient, 
docile perusal of the Bible itself. 

This evening, however, we are to occupy much lower ground. 
We are to attempt a solution of the question : Is man respon- 
sible ? This is a question which lies at the basis of all Theo- 
logy and of all moral science. For, if it be answered in the 
negative, it necessarily divests the former of all interest and 
importance. If man occupy no moral relation to God — if he 
owe him no duty and lie under no accountability to him — the 
question of his existence may be safely left in abeyance, and 
all inquiry into the subject would only tend to gratify an idle 
curiosity. It lies at the basis, also, of all moral science. For 
what is moral science but the science of human duty? Here, 
however, v/e are to inquire whether there be such a thing as 
duty ? If there be not, it follows, as a matter of course, that 
there can be no j)i'inciples to regulate it. 

The question which we are to consider is, in some of its as- 
pects and bearings, a very difficult one. It stands closely 
related to some of those subjects, the depths of which no 
human understanding has yet been able to fathom. Its con- 
nexion with the grand and perplexing question regarding the 
origin of evil will be at once apparent, and its still more im- 
mediate connection with the question of liberty and necessity 



4 EVID£^'CES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

— the fore-knowledge and pre-ordination of God. It is not 
incumbent on us, however, to find a satisfactory solution of 
these questions in order to determine the one immediately be- 
fore us, and it is far from our purpose to perplex ourselves 
with the intricacies of metaphysical problems to which we 
should find no end, in wandering mazes lost. We shall at- 
tempt a more direct solution, and one which, we trust, will be 
found satisfactory. 'We are the more entitled to do this, as 
our chief object in dealing with this question at all is to exa- 
mine and confute the principles which are developed in some 
of the propositions contained in a little book by Mr Robert 
Owen, called the Social Bible. 

Before we proceed to this, however, there is a preliminary 
enquiry upon which w^e must enter, namely, what is the kind of 
evidence for which we are to look and with which we should 
be satisfied on a question of this nature ? For the deter- 
mination of this or any other question there must obviously be 
certain first principles which all must admit, which are inca- 
pable of being demonstrated, simply because they are axio- 
matic. This is the case even in the science of Geometry, in 
which it would be impossible to proceed to demonstrate a single 
proposition, unless its axioms were admitted as true. The 
science of mind, w^hich takes cognizance of its laws and opera- 
tions, has also its axioms, without the admission of which it is 
impossible to reason about any of the mental phenomena. It 
is not less true that by far the larger number of the facts and 
principles of physical science are based upon these axioms of 
mental philosophy. For physical science, so far as it is of 
any value, is grounded upon observation and experience. But 
to conclude any thing from observation is to take for granted 
the veracity of our perceptions ; and unless this be regarded 
as axiomatic we can have no evidence even of the existence of 
physical nature, far less of the phenomena of those changes 
which, it undergoes. When we see an object we are con- 
vinced that it exists and is as we observe it, and we can have 
no farther evidence on the matter, except by repeated obser- 
vation under various circumstances, the concurrent observa- 
tion of others, or by handling the object as well as looking at 
it, and thus obtaining the testimony of another of our senses. 
But this evidence is all of the same kind, and is all useless 



MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. O 

to him^ who refuses to belieye the veracity of our percep- 
tions. But by the very constitution of our nature we are com- 
pelled to believe the evidence of our senses. The most incre- 
dulous sceptic who has tried to reason himself out of a belief 
in the existence of the physical universe would not stand to 
risk the effect of a cannon shot — would not throw himself into 
the fire — and would run as fast as any body else from a fall- 
ing house. 

This confidence in the veracity of our perceptions does not 
arise from their being infallibly certain in all their informa- 
tions nor from their direct character. There are such things as 
illusions — sensations which have no corresponding physical 
cause. Men often see what does not exist. There are cer- 
tain states of nervous derangement under which all the senses 
may be and are deceived. Sounds are heard which exist 
only in the distempered ear. Sights are observed which have 
no reality save in the retina of the diseased eye. Even our 
sense of touch cheats us by feelings which are not less really ex- 
perienced than if some external pressure were applied to the 
body. He who has had a limb cut off may have a sensation 
of pain in the toes of the severed member, ^or is the evi- 
dence of the senses direct and immediate. What is sound but 
the undulations of the atmosphere ? What do I see but co- 
lour and possibly extension, that is, colour spread over a cer- 
tain space ? What is my sense of touch but the perception 
of resistance ? And jet, notwithstanding, e^rery man believes 
the evidences of his senses, unless it be proved to him that 
they are in a diseased state. Neither the indirectness of the 
information they communicate, nor the possibility of that in- 
formation being iaaccurate, at all shakes our confidence in 
them. We act upon the faith that seeing is believing. 

I remark still farther, that it is possible to make our senses 
false witnesses, or to make them incapable of bearing evidence. 
Let a man look for a considerable time at the sun with 
the naked eye, and he will find when he uses the organ for 
other purposes immediately afterwards, either that he has 
been blinded with excessof light and cannot see at all, or that 
every thing which he does see is coloured with hues which do 
not belong to it. And what is true of the sense of sight is 
true of all the senses. A raan when he steps ashore feels 



O EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that the firm set earth is agitated with the very motions of 
the vessel he has left. A severe and long-continued pressure 
is felt long after its exciting cause has been removed. Yet, 
notwithstanding these familiar facts, the testimonv of the 
senses is believed. We have no other evidence of external 
phenomena, and the evidence is felt to be altogether satisfactory. 
I remark again, that the senses are capable of education 
and training. By neglect or abuse they become dull and 
languid, and defective in their information. A blind man 
whose necessities compel him to depend more upon the infor- 
mation of his other senses, has been known to acquire a sense 
of touch so delicate and acute, as to detect the colour of vari- 
ous kinds of cloth by means of it. A deaf man will learn to 
interpret short and easy sentences by the motion of the lips 
in speaking. A practical astronomer would not trust the in- 
formation of an unpractised observer, and would refuse to 
note down as correct what he reported as coming across the 
field to which the telescope was directed. 

These remarks will not be without their use in considering 
the topic to which we now more immediately address ourselves. 
And what we lay down as axiomatic here — a thing not to bo 
inferred from the deductions of logic, but true, in point of fact, 
undemonstrable just because it is a fundamental principle — is. 
that there is in every man a power of discerning between good 
and evil, between right and wrong. It is not of much conse- 
quence what name we may be pleased to apply to this sense, 
or faculty, or sentiment. We may call it conscience, or the 
moral sense, or whatever name best serves to designate its 
functions. But the fact is, whatever name we give it, the 
thing is there, in every man's nature, pronouncing its judiz- 
ments more or less accurately. When we say that a man sees 
with his eyes, we can go no farther back, and can demand no 
farther proof. It stands as a naked assertion, self-demon- 
strated in the mere assertion of it — making its appeal to the 
consciousness of every man. Even so we say man has a con- 
science, a faculty of discerning between right and wrong, which 
is informed through the senses of the reality of actions, and 
pronounces a judgment upon their moral character. No man 
believes that truth and falsehood have the same character — 



MAN S RESPONSIBILITY. i 

that virtue and vice are equally commendable — that there is 
no difference between good and evil. I have spoken of those 
who, by refined processes of logic, have reasoned themselves 
out of the belief of an external world, who yet would instinc- 
tively run away from under a falling house. And the same 
thing is true with the man who has, by a like process, reasoned 
himself out of the belief in all moral distinctions ; that, how- 
ever much his belief may operate upon his own personal ac- 
tions, he will not experience the same feelings towards the 
man who deals kindly with him and the man who acts cruelly 
against him — he will not act the same part towards a thief as 
towards an honest man. The instincts of his nature will 
prove stronger than his logic. If a man whom he has trusted 
robs him, he will not only be sensible that he has lost so much 
money, wbi.:h may put him to some inconvenience, but he .vill 
feel a greater or less degree of moral indignation. If a man 
strikes him without provocation, he w^ill not only feel hurt, but 
that a wrong has been done him. If, in our affliction, we expe- 
rience the kind sympathy of a friend, there will be awakened 
within us the emotions of love and gratitude. Our instincts 
compel us constantly to approve or to condemn. There is not 
a day during which we shall not find ourselves pronouncing 
some moral judgment. We feel that every act has a character ; 
and, whatever logical theory we may build up for ourselves, 
in despite of it we assign to each act the character it bears. 
There is to us a good and bad in the very constitution of our 
nature. These words, or their equivalents, are inwoven into 
the language of every people under heaven. Conscience is 
wherever human nature is. We infer its existence from the 
fact that everywhere moral judgments are pronounced, for a 
moral judgment presupposes the existence of a faculty of moral 
discernment. We believe that the people on the other side 
of the world have eyes, because we know they exercise the 
functions proper to vision. We know, in like manner, the 
existence of conscience, from the universal language of praise 
or blame, approval or disapproval, rewards or punishments. 
The existence of moral judgments cannot be doubted. They 
are discernible in all the intercourse of men, in their actings 
towards each other as well as in the language they employ. 
There may be some difficulty in determining how, or in virtue 



o EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of what these judgments are pronounced, even as there mar 
be some difficulty in determining by what process the form 
and hue of external objects are conveyed to the mind through 
the medium of the senses. But, regarding an object of vision, 
it is reckoned quite enough for common purposes to say that 
we see it. And so, concerning the character of our actions, it 
is surely enough, on the same principle, to say that we feel it 
to be as we describe. We call the organ of vision the eye, 
and we may be permitted to call the faculty by which we judge 
of the character of actions the conscience. It is enough for 
us to know the fact that moral judgments are pronounced. 
The inference is inevitable, that there is in every man the 
faculty of forming them. 

I am quite aware that the moral judgments of men re- 
garding all actions are not uniform. It is quite certain that 
some people regard acts as a duty w^hich others pronounce to 
be a crime. The ancient Spartans inculcated the duty of 
theft. The Thugee in modern India, the duty of strangula- 
tion. The Chinese and the inhabitants of Hindostan alike 
hold themselves blameless for the murder of female infants. 
The Romanists count it the highest office of religion in men 
or women to immure themselves in convents or monasteries. 
In such cases as these it may be that conscience is perverted, 
that the judgment which it pronounces is untrue ; but it is 
not the less a fact that it exists and operates. The Thugee 
strangles his victim under a sense of duty ; the Spartan stole 
that he might learn expertness ; the Hindu mother immolated 
herself on the demand of a felt moral obligation. The law 
of conscience is involved even in these perversions of its exer- 
cise. But, if so, is conscience to be trusted ? Is she a faith- 
ful arbiter? Are we safe in guiding ourselves by her conclu- 
sions ? Our answer is in the affirmative. We cannot help 
ourselves. The aberrations of conscience are not greater 
than in the case of the bodily senses. We have seen that 
their testimony is not uniformly true, yet we cannot help 
trusting it. It is so with our conscience ; it may be abused, 
blinded, perverted, yet we must trust it. 

It is important, however, to observe that conscience, like 
the senses, is capable of education and refinement ; and this 
capacity involves the principle that men are bound so to edu- 



3IAN « KESPOXSIBILITY. 9 

cate it that its judgments shall be uniformly veritable and 
trustworthy. It may appear as if we were taking for granted 
the whole thing to be proved in thus asserting an obligation 
on men to train, educate, and inform their conscience. Yet 
we think it will not be denied, as matter of fact at least, that 
if a man do not employ and improve his bodily senses in such 
a way as to assure himself of the correctness of their informa- 
tions, he will ere long feel that he has violated a law of na- 
ture, and must suffer the penalty of his neglect or abuse. He 
will fall into mistakes of such a character as to tell most in- 
juriously on his interests, and not only will he be exposed to 
such puDishm.ent as these mistakes involve, but to the addi- 
tional punishment that his own conscience will inform him 
that he is personally blameworthy, in that he did not use 
aright the gifts of nature. Thus it is also that conscience 
pronounces judgments on its own actings, that when it is 
better educated it blames the judgments it formed in its 
perverted state. It is recorded that when the British Govern- 
ment prohibited the murder of female infants within their 
territories in India, the first words which the Hindu mother 
taught her female infant to lisp were " Colonel Yfalker saved 
me ;" words which instruct us not only in the strength of the 
maternal instinct, but prove that the act of the British Legis- 
lature was in accordance with the consciences of the people, 
and that in the light of that act they read the true character 
of the'r former conduct. It is a law of which the most 
darkened and perverted conscience will admit the rectitude, 
that this judge, resident in every man, pronouncing its de- 
cisions on every fact which comes under its cognizance, ought 
to he trained and educated in the best possible manner. If it 
require the studied experience of years to take trustworthy 
observations of the stars by means of a telescope, surely we 
cannot expect that the arbitrations of conscience shall be 
uniformly trustworthy ; that this judge of the nice distinctions 
which affect the character of actions shall be able correctly 
to discriminate and weigh the multiform influences which 
affect the truthfulness of its observations, unless it be made a 
special object and duty to educate and train it for its high 
office. 

The fact that conscience exists — that it performs such 



10 



EVIDENCES OFCHRiSTJAXlTY. 



functions as we have described — that it attaches a character 
to actions, and incites in us this sentiment of approval or dis- 
approval, implies that we necessarily judge some actions to he 
praiseworthy and others to be blameable. Such judgment is 
by us inevitable. We may refrain if we will from pronouncing 
it — we may refrain even from considering the character of an 
action, but if our attention be called to it — if we are conscious 
of the action — it has to us a character. This instinct of our 
nature pronounces it to be good or bad. It is possible that 
we may reason ourselves into the belief that sucri judgments 
are a departure from the truth of things — that we form our 
moral judgments in ignorance, and were we better instructed 
in the relations of man to the universe, we would perceive 
that actions had no character. If any one chooses to assume 
such a position as this, the whole question at issue will resolve 
itself into a comparison of the weight and credibility of the 
evidence of a primitive and universal instinct, and the de- 
ductions of logical science. In the one case we have the as- 
sertion, — that it appears from the relation in which man stands 
to the universe — it may be from his very condition as a 
creature — from the constitution he inherits at birth, and from 
the necessary impressibility of that constitution by the in- 
fluences which surround him, it is irrational to suppose that 
he could act in any other way than he does — that he is impelled 
in every step he takes by a blind and fatal necessity, and no- 
thing which happens to him or that he does in consequence could 
be otherwise than it is. In the other case, we have the unfailing, 
invariable testimony in the very constitution of our nature, 
that it is not so — that actions are good or bad — that we have 
the power of choice, and are not under an absolute necessity 
of doing evil ; and that, in so fir as our acts are blameworthy, 
we have consented to the performance of them, which consent 
it was in our own power to give or to withhold. Now, the 
question is, which are we to believe, the logic, or the instinct ^ 
Which of them does reason itself call upon us to believe ? 
Which of these two witnesses bearing contrary testimony is 
the most credible ? 

The full investigation of the subject suggested by this ques- 
tion would lead us into the examination of the whole history 
and character of mental philosophy, especially during the last 



man's RESPOXSIBILITY. ll 

huFidred years. It is not a little instructive to mark the re- 
Tolutions whicli it has undergone, and how surely the seeds of 
truth or error germinate and produce their fruit. That which 
engaged the attention and exercised the genius of philoso- 
phers eighty years ago, has now entered the shop of the 
artizan, and forms a leading object of his investigations. 
Meanwhile that philosophy of logic and mechanical dexterity 
which is bearing its later fruits has been completely revolu- 
tionised, and men who occupy the higher regions of contem- 
plation have abandoned it as worthless. But without entering 
into the history of philosophy, or endeavouring to estimate 
the soundness of those principles which have revolutionised 
it, it is worth while to note the issues to which it led in the 
hands of him who was by far its most able expounder and de- 
fender. David Hume proved by logic not only that men were 
irresponsible, but non-existent. He proved not only that our 
consciences pronounced judgment on imaginary acts, but that 
the physical universe itself was an idea and nothing more. I 
say it is worth while to note the fact, and to keep in mind 
that the same logic which overbears the testimony of con- 
science, overbears the testiniony of the bodily senses also ; in 
other words, that the philosophy of mere logic cannot find a 
place for itself save in the destruction of everything but it- 
self. It can discover no solid foundation except by merging 
all existence into a mere logical idea. 

But what evidence have we for the soundness of our logic ? 
Must it too not rest ultimately on the instincts of our nature ? 
Its deductions pre- suppose a mind that reasons, a judgment 
that compares and connects ideas. But what is the evidence 
that two ideas really cohere, of the relations and depen dance 
of any two propositions ? Is it not that our minds being con- 
stituted as they are we cannot believe otherwise ? that is to 
say, we must trust in every deduction of logic to the instinc- 
tive awards of our intellectual nature. For the simplest pro- 
positions — the most certain and infallible — addressed to our 
understandings then, we have no higher evidence than we have 
in favour of the moral judgments we pronounce. The facts 
that the sum of two and two is four, and that the whole is 
greater than its part, are propositions addressed to the un- 
derstanding, and of such a character that everv one who 



12 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

knows the terms in which they are conveyed must admit their 
truth. But we have no higher evidence of their truth than 
the instinct of our judgment. That some actions are good 
and that some are bad — that it is wrong in a son to murder 
his father, that it is right in a mother to defend and nourish 
her infant — are propositions addressed to the conscience, and 
its arbitration on their character is final. We are constrained 
to yield our assent to its dictates, because they are uttered by 
an instinctive principle of our nature. Thus we perceive that 
the simplest propositions which lie at the foundation of all 
logic, have no stronger evidence than our moral judgments. 
Our moral perceptions are as trustworthy as our intellectual 
perceptions. Bat if in such a case as we have supposed the 
two classes of propositions stand on a level, the question will 
no longer be doubtful when the comparison lies between 
lengthened logical deductions, and the simple instinctive move- 
ments of the soul. Especially is this the case when our logical 
deductions, as in the present instance, embrace such vast and 
complicated considerations as the relations of man to the 
world in which he lives, and to the Supreme Being who is the 
Author of it. In such a wide field of enquiry and investiga- 
tion there is obviously room for so man j errors, as to render 
our most guarded conclusions uncertain. Our relations to the 
world — to God the maker of us and it — who shall measure 
them ? Does not every new discovery in science develope 
some relation hitherto unknown in which our destiny is or may 
be more or less concerned ? To find a solid basis for such 
logic we would need the gift of omniscience. What though 
vdthin the range of our knowledge we should have discovered 
nothing which vitiates the conclusion that man is the creature 
of necessity, that all his acts are inevitable, and have conse- 
quently no moral character (for freedom of choice is essential 
to morality) are we sure that in the Tast region of the un- 
known there may not lie facts innumerable which would de- 
monstrate the fallacy of our inference ? Indeed the whole 
argument from which these conclusions are deduced is neces- 
sarily though not avowedly what is called an argUmentiim ah 
ignGrantia, and should always assume this form in order to 
make it soundly logical : — For aught we know, or so far as our 
knowledge or observation extends, there can be no guilt and 



man's responsibility. 13 

no responslbilitv. But we do not know all the facts in order 
to establissh a conclusive x^roof. Oar knowledge of God is not 
sufficiently comprehensiye ; it is limited to but a small section 
of the creation to which we stand related ; it embraces but a 
small part of the influences to which we are subject; it is in 
the last degree imperfect in regard to human nature itself. 
In such a state of ignorance no logical conclusion can be quite 
certain. A deduction founded on partial premises is sure 
to be erroneous, and in this case we are not sure and cannot 
be sure that we know all the premises. 

But, as opposed to such logical speculations, we have two 
practical certainties which demonstrate their fallacy. We 
have within us a living witness and judge, instinctively in- 
forming us that our actions have a moral character, and, con- 
sequently, that we have power to choose the good and to re- 
fuse the evil; for all moral judgments proceed upon the 
latter fact. Did we see a man under physical restraint com- 
pelled to commit a murder, our consciences would at once 
acquit him of blame. But our instincts teach us that when 
men consent to do that which is evil — when they willingly 
perpetrate a crime — that they are blame-worthy — that they 
might have willed to do otherwise. 

This other fact also is obtruded upon our consciousness. 
We do not merely pronounce on the character of other men's 
actions but upon that of our own. When we are conscious of 
wrong-doing, we know that we could and ought to have done 
otherwise. We experience the sense of demerit, and are 
punished, if not otherwise, at least by our own feelings of re- 
morse and shame. It is vain to say to me that this is a de- 
lusion — that I could not have acted otherwise, and that my 
consciousness of liberty is a delusion. I say it is in vain, 
for, if I believe anything, I must believe my own conscious- 
ness. This is the highest evidence we can have. I have no 
other proof of my own existence — that I do anything — that I 
think or reason. I am conscious of these things, and there- 
fore I must believe them. I know, for example, that I have 
come here of my own free-will, and might have been else- 
where had I chosen. If you say I came here under the influ- 
ence of certain inducemects, I answer, it is true ; but, by 
yielding to these inducements, I have made the act of coming 



14: EVIDEXCES OF CHRISTIA^'1TY. 

my own, and am therefore responsible for all that is implied 
in it. If you say farther, that, being constituted as I am, and 
educated as I have been, I could not have resisted these in- 
ducements ; my answer is, that, on this subject of my mental 
constitution, and the power of certain inducements over it, I 
have not sufficient knowled^^e to enable me, with certainty, to 
determine such a matter. If you say that, on supposition of 
its being true, I incur neither praise nor blame — that my act 
loses its moral character, you contradict my consciousness, and 
allow your own imperfect logic to overbear and silence the 
voice of your own consciences. If you say that I am in ray 
relation to outward circumstances entirely passive, you degrade 
me from the position not only of a rational but a living being. 
I know that if I strike this table with a hard substance it will 
produce a sound varying with the intensity of the stroke, and 
the nature of the impinging body. But I know that I do not 
exist as a mass of inert matter — that I am not passive, but an 
agent — ^that I am not moulded by circumstances, but am called 
upon to mould them. 

It is of great practical importance to notice that this w^orld 
is constituted on the theory of man being a moral agent, and 
therefore responsible. Human nature, too, is constituted on 
this principle, and it may not he unprofitable that we should 
briefly advert to this question of human responsibility, not as 
a speculative theory, but as a matter of fact. However we 
may account for it, whatever theory we may hold regarding 
the constitution of man and his relation to other beings, even 
admitting it as true that he is bound up under a hard neces- 
city, so that he cannot vary his course or in any respect act 
differently from what he does, still it is a fact that he is res- 
ponsible — is dealt with as such, is punished as criminal or the 
reverse, and that not merely through the instrumentality of 
human laws, but by an agency which is far above these. Ac- 
count for it how you will, argue for it as you may, that man 
ought not to be responsible, the fact that he is so is indisput- 
able. 

Ce-rtain punishments, both internal and external, follow 
the violations of the law of conscience just as certainly as 
that law is transgressed. I cannot, however induced, act con- 
trary to that which my conscience pronoun so s to be righ^ 



man's responsibility. 15 

■without losing that peace and quietude of mind which consti- 
tute the largest portion of human happiness. I cannot act 
dishonestly without losing the confidence at least if not the 
approbation and esteem of mj fellow men, and thus I am shut 
out from another large field of enjoyment. If a murderer 
were to plead that he had. shed the blood of his Yictim under a 
necessary law of his being, I might plead in yindication of his 
punishment that I was impelled to it under the operation of 
the same law. For if all acts of men are necessary and inevi- 
table, and the hypothesis presumes this, the act of hanging a 
murderer is as necessary as the act of murder itself. Such 
a theory of necessity does not change the matter of fact, or 
change in the least the relation between crime and its punish- 
ment. The theory may induce us to change the names, but 
it demands that the relation shall exist — that the punishment 
shall be the inevitable effect of the crime. 

And if such be the fact in the constitution of the world, and 
under the laws impressed on our mental constitution — if the 
just and the unjust must have a different history in the world 
— if it be impossible to act towards them the same part, then, 
on the supposition that there is a God to judge the world, and 
to render the awards of righteousness to every man, the plea 
of necessity, we conclude by analogy, shall be no bar to the 
condemnation in eternity. Admit even that we are drifted en 
in the current of inevitible fate — that we are mere passive 
instruments in the hands of some unseen power, we perceive 
that this world and our nature are so constituted as that the 
landing-place of thoso who obey the law of conscience is happi- 
ness, and peace, and honour ; and the landing-place of those 
who disobey is punishment more or less severe according to the 
character of the crime. And if this be so here, in this place 
of our temporary sojourn, we are warranted to infer that it 
will be so when we pass that bourne from which no traveller 
returns. Our experience in this world would lead to the con- 
clusion, that the Bible speaks the truth when it tells us that 
there is a heaven for the righteous and a hell for the wicked. 
At all events, let us endeavour not to forget this fact, that we 
cannot dissolve by our logic the relation between punishment 
and the violation of the law of conscience, that the punishment 
must come whatever account we may be disposed to give of the 
inducements under whose sway we have committed sin. 



16 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But we must also observe, that the allegation of a necessity 
for the commission of crime does not free us from moral con- 
demnation. On the contrary, were a man to allege that his 
mind was so constituted that he could not resist the slightest 
inducement to sin, that he felt himself impelled to it by the 
strength of inclinations which he was altogether powerless to 
resist, we w^ould feel that so far from having established a com- 
plete vindication of himself, he had but increased our moral 
abhorrence. When the Christian alleges of his God that he 
cannot lie, he represents him as so constituted that it is im- 
posible for him to speak other than the truth. But this ne- 
cessity of His nature, so to speak, does not destroy the moral 
character of his faithfulness. Our consciences bear witness 
that such a necessity enhances its merits, that He is all the 
more glorious in his truthfulness just because he cannot be 
otherwise than true. Now the converse of this holds also 
good. If a man from evil dispositions, strengthened by evil 
habits, has so deadened or weakened all principles of moral 
rectitude within him that he feels the temptation to sin irre- 
sistible, that the law of conscience has lost all its power, has 
ceased even to give itself utterance in any way — we do not 
prove thereby that he is innocent — we merely prove him to be 
a monster of iniquity, altogether evil. 

If w^e have spoken above merely hypothetically of the exis- 
tence and moral government and righteous awards of God, it 
is not because we have any doubt on these subjects, or suppose 
these truths incapable of a triumphant vindication ; but merely 
because, having not proved them to be truths, we would found 
nothing of our argument upon them. It is not to be denied, 
however, that the question of human responsibility assumes by 
far its most momentous and solemn aspect when we view man 
in his relation to the Supreme Being. We do not now enter 
upon the proof of the existence of a God, and the manifold 
evidences of his character which he has spread everywhere 
around us. We do not even insist on the evidence of his 
righteous character, founded on the very fact that we have a 
conscience, nor on the moral solecism which is implied in there 
being a law without a lawgiver and a judge. We hold it de- 
monstrable, on the mere ground of there being a law of con- 
science, that there must be a law-maker and a judge to vindi- 
cate the integrity of that law and to dispense its awards. But 



MAX'S RESPOXSIBILITY. 17 

let us rather take up the lowest possible ground on this subject. 
We have not demonstrated the being of a God, nor sought to 
exhibit the relation in which He must, as such, stand to us as 
creatures. On the other hand no one can prove or know that 
God does not exist. On this subject let us quote the terse 
language of John Foster. '^ The wonder turns on the great 
process by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence 
that could know there is no God. What ages and what 
lights are requisite for this attainment ! This intelligence 
involves the very attributes of Divinity while a God is denied. 
For, unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this mo- 
ment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but 
there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by 
which even he would be overpowered. If he does not absolutely 
know every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know 
may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the uni- 
verse, and does not know Vv^hat is so, that which is so may be 
God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the proposi- 
tions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants 
may be that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty 
assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause 
may be a God. If he does not know every thing that has 
been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some things 
may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all 
things, that is, precludes another deity, by being one himself, 
he cannot know that the being whose existence he rejects, 
does not exist.'' 

On such a basis as this — on the mere possibility that a God 
exists — it is possible to prove the responsibility of man, and 
to charge home upon him the deepest guilt if he do not seek 
after and find him, if he do not render to him that homage 
and gratitude and love which are his due. If I find that 
every day there is sent to my house a provision for my re- 
turning wants, it may be that I do not know the quarter from 
which the provision comea, but the fact that it does come lays 
me under an obligation of gratitude to my unknown bene- 
factor, and of effort to discover who he is, that I may tender 
my thanks for his unwearied and unrewarded beneficence. 
Conscience teaches us thus much regardirg our duty to an 
NO. II. 



18 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

earthly benefactor. And not less clearly does it instruct as- 
regarding our duty even under the possibility that a God may 
be. On this subject I may be allowed to quote the glowing 
and eloquent language of Dv Chalmers. 

'• To the possibility that a God may be, there attaches a 
most clear and incumbent morality. It is to go in quest of 
that unseen benefactor, who for aught I know has ushered me 
into existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around me. 
It is to probe the secret of my being and my birth ; and, if 
possible, to make discovery whether it was indeed the hand of 
a benefactor that brought me forth from the chambers of non- 
entity, and gave me place and entertainment in that glowing 
territory, which is lighted up with the hopes and the happi- 
ness of living men. It is thus that the very conception of a 
God throws a responsibility after it ; and that duty, solemn 
and imperative duty, stands associated with the thought of a 
pjossible deity, as well as with the sight of a present deity, 
standing in full manifestation before us. Even anterior to all 
knowledge of God, or when that knowledge is in embryo, 
there is both a path of irreligion and a path of piety : and that 
law which denounces the one and gives to the other an 
approving testimony, may find in him who is still in utter 
darkness about his origin and his end, a fit subject for the 
retributions which she deals in. He cannot be said to have 
borne disregard to the will of that God, whom he has found. 
But his is the guilt of impiety, in that he has borne disre- 
gard to the knowledge of that God whom he was bound by every 
tie of gratitude to seek after — a duty not founded on the 
proofs that may be exhibited for the being of a God, but a 
duty to which even the most slight and slender of presump- 
tions should give rise. And who can deny that, antecedent to 
all close and careful examination of the proofs, there are at 
least many presumptions in behalf of a God, to meet the eye 
of every observer ? Is there any so hardy as to deny that 
the curious workmanship of his frame Qna}/ have had a de- 
signer and an architect ; that the ten tj|^ousand independent 
circumstances which must be united ere he can have a mo- 
ment's ease, and the failure of any one of which would be 
agony, may not have met at random, but that there may be a 



I\L\X'S RESPONSIBILITY. 19 

Skilful and unseen hand to have put them together into one 
wondrous concurrence, and that never ceases to uphold it ; 
that there may be a real and a living artist, whose fingers 
did frame the economy of actual things, and who hatli so marvel- 
lously suited all that is around us to our senses and our 
powers of gratification ? Without affirming aught which is 
positive, surel}^ the air that w^e breatlie, and the beautiful 
light in which we expatiate, these elements of sight and 
sound so exquisitely fitted to the organs of the human frame- 
work, may have been provided by one who did benevolently 
consult in them our special accommodation. The graces in- 
numerable that lie widely spread over the face of our world, 
the glorious concave of heaven that is placed over us, the 
grateful variety of seasons that like Nature's shifting 
panorama ever brings new entertainment and delight to 
the eye of spectators — these may, for aught we know, be the 
emanations of a creative mind, tha.t originated our family 
and devised such a universe for their habitation. Regarding 
these, not as proofs, but in the humble light of presumptions 
for a God, they are truly enough to convict us of foulest in- 
gratitude — if we go not forth in quest of a yet unknown, but 
at least possible or likely benefactor. They may not resolve 
the question of a God. But they bring the heaviest reproach 
on our listlessness to the question ; and show that, anterior to 
our assured belief in his existence, there lies upon us a most 
imperious obligation to ' stir ourselves up that we may lay 
hold of Him.' " 

yre should novi proceed to examine various propositions 
which are laid down in Mr Owen's book. I believe that in my 
precediDg argument I have anticipated much of what it might 
have been necessary here to adduce, yet it might be useful to 
bring the principles which we have been illustrating into imme- 
diate contact with his statements. I may be allowed to state, and 
this is all I can do at present, that Mr Owen nowhere exhibits 
his grounds of belief. In this book there is no argument. Its 
statements are given in the form of propositions of which no 
proof is attempted. They stand therefore merely by the 
weight of his personal authority, and are commended to our 



20 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

acceptance only in so far as they are self-evident. Farther, 
permit me to say that this is the character of very much of 
what is contained in this book. I mean that it is not only de- 
monstrably true, but self-evident. It contains however an 
admixture of fatal errors. It may be affirmed of it what has 
been said of a certain science, that there are some things in it 
which are true and some which are new, that what is true in 
it is not new, and what is new in it is not true. 



( 21 ) 



LECTUEE II. 



ON THE BDIOETALITY OF MAN. 

BY THE REV. ALEX. HANNAY, 



The instigator of this series of Lectures declared liimself 
on a former evening. The project did not originate with the 
lecturers. It is clean of any taint of officialism ; it is the 
idea and yearning of private benevolence. But we do not 
the less cordially sympathise with it. We have adopted the 
scheme though we did not give it birth, and it commands the 
service of our kindliest feelings — our freshest and best powers, 
as though it were our own. Some of us had the idea, but we 
hesitated, and even trembled, before it. We felt ourselves 
burdened with disadvantages ; from the pulpit our voice could 
not reach the denying, the doubting, or the enquiring mass. 
This platform was offered, and we sprung with eagerness to 
the vantage-ground to which it raised us. 

Most heartily do I endorse this departure from the routine 
modes of exhibiting and enforcing truth. They have been 
too stately and unbending for the wants and circumstances of 
this generation. Truth is in its very nature imbending ; bat 
the accident of mode, and the circumstance of advocacy, 
should adapt themselves to the changing attitudes of succes- 
sive ages. In this age, truth must lift up her voice in the 
streets. She must come down from the pedestals and classic 
elevations on which past generations have placed her. The 



22 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

mass no longer comes to gaze upon her benignity, or to wor- 
ship in her presence there. She must assume the condescen- 
sion, and use the language of her master, " Come let us rea- 
son together." 

*' Come let us reason together." This is the motto of our 
course. We do not dogmatize or declaim. We impeach no 
m-otive — we hurl no anathema. We speak to your judg- 
ments, and appeal to your candour. In this let no one think 
that there is a degradation of truth . Her glory is, not that 
she prostrates reason, hut that she raises and guides it — not 
that she evades reason's questions, but that she answers them 
— not that she denounces reason's problems as impertinent or 
impious, but that she solves them. She invites the most ela- 
borate inspection — the most microscopic scrutiny ; and she 
stands confest in her full glory and attractiveness only to the 
man who thus honours her. Reason and truth are co-relative 
— reasonable enquiry and truth are as a|3petite and provision. 
In dark ages reason was decried, endungeoned, and burned, 
but it was decried in the cause of error, and not in the cause 
of truth. 

The truth of revelation claims for itself no exemption. It, 
too, is a candidate for human faith and human acceptance ; it 
submits to the ordinary laws of candidateship. It supposes, 
and virtually commands, the exercise of reason, both in the 
department of evidence by which its authority is witnessed, 
and in the department of interpretation by which its mean- 
ing is elicited. Revelation appeals to reason, consciousness, 
and nature. '* Doth not nature itself teach you ?" is its lan- 
guage. ^' We speak as unto Wise men, judge ye what we 
say." 

These observations do not inappropriately introduce my 
high theme of brief discourse — The immortality of man. 
]Man is immortal : It is a proposition for reason to test. It is 
the doctrine of the Scriptures, but it is not theirs exclusivel3\ 
In this matter the Scriptures are only commentators upon 
nature, elucidators of consciousness. True, they profess that 
Christ brought immortality to light ; and this is historically 
true, literally interpreted. Before Christ came, it floated in 
the human mind an uninterpreted sentiment — dim, shadowy; 
or it found a hesitating utterence in the speculations of 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 23 

the learned. Christ was not the first to conceive it as a 
truth ; he was the first to announce it as a fact. He gave the 
trumpet a certain sound. He brought immortality to light. 
Man had long yearned, aspired, felt the movements of a 
mighty but unintelligible instinct within : Christ arose, and 
said, it is immortality. Men felt that God had spoten ; for 
this doctrine understood them, — it satisfied their deepest 
ci^vings, it solved their most stubborn problems ; it agreed 
with everything, and contradicted nothing. Christ's words 
did not make the immortality of man a truth, they cnly de- 
clared it true. In this age when men are testing the foun- 
dations^ putting to the question the most venerable common- 
places of universal belief, this proposition cannot escape. 
Men will not rely upon the announcement of Christ. They 
say, we must find this true in nature, or reject it. The proof 
is demanded. It is claimed that we lay bare the ground on 
which the doctrine rests apart from the declarations of the 
Bible. The claim is a fair one. If there be any truth in 
the doctrine of human immortality, it is a truth older than 
the Bible, and capable of independent proof. We, therefore, 
accept the challenge, and turn to the task. 

Allow me one preliminary observation. I make no dis- 
tinction here between the proof of a future life and the 
proof of immortality, strict deathlessness, strict unendingness. 
There is a manifest distinction. A future life might termi- 
nate in death at some distant point of time. But no one 
has ever held, or, so far as I know, suggested this. If life 
resumes, or more properly continues, after the death which we 
witness here, the question is settled, no one has ever con- 
ceived a reason w^hy it should end at all. Death alone sug- 
gests the annihilation of man ; but let death be conquered, and 
the immortality of man remains unimpeached. The proof of ii 
future life is to every candid mind as the proof of immortality. 

It must be admitted that prior to a consideration of the 
evidences which go to shew that man is immortal, the fact 
that death reigns over all, would seem to establish a pre- 
sumption against his immortality. To the senses, death is 
the end of a man. He seems suddenly to determine. The 
light of intelligence, and the fire of action seem to flicker and 
dim with the ebbing life, and to be quenched with the last 



2i EA^DENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

pulsation. We lay a man in the grave, and we feel as 
though he were not. Before we can proceed, therefore, to 
exhibit the proofs which satisfy our minds of the truth of the 
proposition that man is immortal, we must consider whether 
the suspicion which this great and universal fact casts upon it 
he well founded, or whether there be not counter-balancing 
presumptions which destroy its force. The question natu- 
rally resolves itself into this form — is there any evidence 
that the destruction of our bodies by death is the annihilation 
of the living, sensitive, willing, reflective man ? It cannot be 
affirmed that death is necessarily man's annihilation ; for no 
one knows what death is. So that there is no absurdity in 
putting this question. We turn, therefore, to such signs and 
characteristics of our present constitution as it may be neces- 
sary for us briefly to examine, in order to know the testimony 
of our nature in the matter. 

Prior to any closer view of our constitution (upon a mere 
general viev/ of it), we might be led to contemplate death as 
only one in a series of changes necessary to fill up the original 
outline of human life. 

When we take a view of the whole life of man, we find that 
he exists in different stages, so to speak — that in these dif- 
ferent stages he manifests different degrees of active and in- 
tellectual power, different degrees of life. He exists in the 
womb, in infancy, in youth, in manhood, and in old age. 
From the conception to the natural decline there is an esta- 
blished series of changes, and the very theatre of life is 
changed. Now this fact would seem to raise a presumption 
that any change which man may undergo, such as death, will 
be, not the termination of his life, but the altering of its form, 
or the changing of its theatre ; and in the absence of all posi- 
tive evidence that the change involves his annihilation as a 
living man, this should be regarded as a presumption suffi- 
ciently strong to act upon. It may be said that in none of the 
ordinary changes which man undergoes is there the same ap- 
parent suspension of life as in death. This is true ; but it 
does not affect the probability that the change, though more en- 
tire, is only one in a series which is necessary to fill up the ori- 
ginal outline of human life. And had not familiarity with the 
fact divested it of everything startling, the change of the 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAX. 2.5 

helpless, puling infant, into the sturdy and commanding man, 
vrould seem a change as great as any that is involved in the 
supposition of continued life, after the prostration and para- 
lysis of death. If we descend from the analogy of man's own 
life we shall find in the brute creation an impressive illustra- 
tive analogue. The caterpillar is produced immediately from 
the egg, it is furnished with several pairs of feet, moves in a 
muscular envelope, having the shape and appearance of a 
worm. At a certain period of life it subsides into what is 
called the nymph or chrysalis state, during which it seems to 
be in a state of rest and insensibility, has no organs for taking 
nourishment, no means of locomotion — a change, so far as we 
can see, as entire as death in man. Yet after a length of 
time it casts off its envelopes, and emerges a perfect insect, 
enters upon a new world, as it were, with new accommodations, 
and new work. Thus the supposition that death in man is 
only one in a series of changes in the formx of his being, is only 
the em^ancipation of the man, as his birth into this world was, 
into a wider field of enjoyment and life, is not only coun- 
tenanced by the analogy of his own existence, but illustrated 
by an impressive analogy from the mere animal world. 

I am bound to say here, however, that I believe, that had 
the original constitution of man been preserved (and there is 
abundant evidence, apart from the testimony of revelation, 
that it has not), the transition from this state would not have 
been of that violent and revolting kind which shocks us in 
every individual death, but would have been gentle and 
kindly, and have been harmonious with those other peaceful 
and gradual transitions which occur in the course of his life. 

This analogical argument will, we admit, be deprived of all 
force if any satisfactory evidence can be adduced that the 
death of our bodies is the annihilation of the living, sensitive, 
reflecting man. Is there, then, any evidence that it is a 
change so desolating ? We have already said that no one can 
say that death is the annihilation of the man in the very nature 
of the case, for no one knows what death is, or can follow it in 
the completing of its work. In the absence of such direct 
proof as this, resting in the very nature of the case, the 
evidence which would be conclusive on the point would shew 
that the living man is so identified with the bodily organs 



26 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

whicli death prostrates, is so absolutely one with them, that 
we cannot conceive of him as existing after their destruction. 
Now is there any proof of this kind ? I hesitate not to say 
that all the signs of our constitution, and testimonies of our 
consciousness, are so many protests against this identification. 

What, for, instance, is the verdict of consciousness ? It 
testifies that the sensitive, living, thinking agent which I call 
myself, that the Ego, the I, is one and indivisible. I cannot 
conceive of myself as existing in parts, one part here and an- 
other part there. My memory may deal with the hoary me- 
morials of men and things in the deepest past, my imagination 
may busy itself with the probabilities of future ages, my 
judgment may ponder present events ; but, in all cases, the 
unwavering consciousness is of one indivisible being. Now, 
if this be so, it would seem to follow that our bodies, which 
are organised and divisible, are not ourselves, that we are 
separable from them ; that there is no absurdity in supposing 
that as they have been connected with us, probably for a tem- 
porary purpose, we may be released from the connection with- 
out impairing our vitality or affecting the integrity of our 
being. If they are not us, why should it be supposed that we 
are involved in their decay ? 

It is said that it is to our bodily organs that we owe our 
knowledge, that to them we are indebted for our first crude 
elements of thought, that they awakened and provoked our 
intelligence. This we admit ; but there is not implied in it 
such an intimacy of connection as necessarily to involve the 
one in the other's fate. It was by help of scaifolding that the 
solemn and stately edifice on which we gaze with wonder was 
crowned with its completing ornament. But the scaffolding 
was torn away ; and, unless the senses can be proved to have 
had a higher vocation, why should not they be torn away also ? 
or why should the tearing of them away be supposed to en- 
danger the edifice ? Now the senses are but the scaffolding of 
the rising edifice of human intelligence. Or, if the figure be not 
a happy one, they are the mere media through which informa- 
tion from this great world pulses and vibrates its way into the 
man. They do not participate in the joys or sorrows which 
they bear into the mind. Like the iron pipes embedded in 
the streets of our cities, which carry a refreshing beverage and 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 27 

cleansing agent into many homes whilst themselves are not re- 
freshed but worn bj the process, these bodily organs insensately 
bear into the mind whatever intelligence comes within their 
sweep. They understand not the message with which they are 
burdened. The eye participates not in the deep joy of a land- 
scape crowded and crowned with beauties, any more than the 
telescope sympathizes with the ardent astronomer as he gazes 
by its help up into the deep heaven of worlds. Music may 
choir its most heaven-like symphony, but the ear shares not the 
ravishment of its " voluptuous swell." Modern art supplies an 
illustration. The telegraphic wires — the sensational system 
of modern com_raerce — vibrate with an equal pulse when they 
propagate messages of death and tidings of hope. Like the 
senses of man they understand not their message. These 
bodily organs have been appropriated to us in this view as the 
educators of the living agent around which they are clus- 
tered—the dumb, silent, but effective educators of the man. 
Is it not reasonable to suppose that when their functions are 
paralysed and terminate in death, other educators will gather 
round the living man in another theatre of existence ? They 
are material and have been appropriated to us ; why may not 
death be the mere divesting of man of this appropriated 
matter, and the casting of him into other and untried rela- 
tions to the universe ? Above all, on what ground should it 
be supposed that the destruction of these bodily organs, which 
have derived any dignity which has ever characterised them 
from the fact that they ministered to the wants and greeds of 
the human spirit, should involve the destruction of that spirit 
itself? 

But we can push this argument still further. We have 
something like direct and positive evidence that the des- 
truction of the bodily organs is not the annihilation of the 
living man. True, we cannot pass with the released spirit, 
which death has disencumbered, across the frontier of time, 
and note its continued existence there. Death allows no 
observer to cross and then to re~cross his portal. No one 
brings tidings to us from the city of the dead. But we have 
partial death on which to make our observations. We see 
men deprived of limbs, of senses, in some cases of several 
limbs, of several senses, (which is death to these parts), and 



23 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

yet continue the same living beings, with the same unimparecl 
consciousness, with the same powers of will, of thought, and 
of affection. Now if any part of a man's body, or any one of 
the organs of sensation may die, and be removed from him, 
and the circle of his consciouness not be compressed, his 
vitality not lessened, his powers of thought, and will, and 
affection, not in any way diminished, surely the natural sup- 
position is, that he will continue unimpaired, when the other 
parts of his body shall die, and his other bodily organs shall 
crumble in the dust. Science teaches us that by unresting- 
attrition there is a constant flowing off of the matter of our 
organised bodies, and a constant flowing in, and appropria- 
tion of matter thrown off by other bodies. All of us have 
already had this material organisation several times changed 
to its minutest fibre and globule, yet the process has not inter- 
fered with our inner identity, it has not broken in upon the 
continuity of our consciousness, we still tell the tales of our 
youth, and never doubt that we were the beings who revelled 
on the green in the wild exuberance of boyish glee. If the 
matter, then, of which our material organisation is built up, is 
constantly passing away from us into other forms, and new 
matter from the world around, is constantly being appro- 
priated in its room, whilst we remain unaltered, and even 
unconscious of the change, surely this is a presumption, in the 
absence of all positive evidence to the contrary, that when 
death shall suspend every physical function by its benumbing 
chill, we who have survived everj^ other change, and shock, and 
partial death, who have not even been disturbed by them, or, 
in some cases, made conscious of them, shall continue to live 
and rise and expand. 

I must yet farther hastily observe, as I press on to the conclu- 
sion of this argument, that our mental powers act in great inde- 
pendence on our bodily organs. There is little evidence that 
they are needed to the higher exercises of reason and reflec- 
tion. They directly minister to us in the state of sensation. 
But in the higher speculations of pure reason, and in the 
ruminations of ordinary reflection, when the idea from which 
we rise has been received, there is no evidence that the bodily 
organs, whose functions alone death manifestly suspends, are 
called into action. There can be no evidence that death will 



THE IMMORTA.LITY OF MAX. 29 

suspend these higher processes, as the bodilj organs with 
which it manifestly deals do not connect themselves with this 
department. 

The influence of the body upon the mind has been objected 
to by opponents against our position. Certain diseases, they 
say, produce delirium, insanity. It is a pithless objection. 
The body is the vehicle by which impressions are conveyed to 
the mind. Diseased organs will convey a false impression. 
Phantasm, and hideous dreams, and dissolving views, and 
stupifying contradictions, will stun and excite the mind. 
Diseased circulation will conspire. The mind is conscious of 
illusion and contradiction, but cannot rise above them. It is 
abused by false intelligence, not weakened, not destroyed. 
And, on the other hand, there are diseases which cast no cloud 
over the star-light serenity, or the sun-light intelligence of 
the mind. They steadily encroach upon the physical frame, 
but in their encroachment there is no narrovv^ing of the mind's 
circle, no darkening of the mind's view. These diseases af- 
feet not the mind in their slow sure progress towards morta- 
lity; what evidence is there that they will annihilate it in the 
moment of mortality ? They impair and attenuate the 
bodily organs, without impairing the vigour of the mind ; 
what evidence is there that when the bodily organs are at last 
alienated, the mind shall cease ? Does not all the evidence 
point to the opposite conclusion ? We might unveil the death 
scene ; but it is for the hand of a master. We quote only 
these brief exclamations of genius — "And if we needed to 
confirm the independence of the thinking principle on its ma- 
terial covering, we might dwell upon its victories over sorrow 
and temptation ; we might unfold the scene of death ! How 
strong has it proved itself amidst that fall — how spiritual 
amidst that decay — how glorious amidst that eclipse ! Its 
greatness had not until then been proved, nor its trium.ph 
signalized ! It is its dawn of a brighter existence ! It is its 
theatre of consummated achievement !" 

I trust this argument has served its end. I rest not the • 
doctrine of immortality upon it. I have used it merely to 
destroy the force of the presumption or suspicion against hu- 
man immortality which arises from the fact of universal 
death. The argument mio-ht have been more minute and 



30 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANlir. 

l^rotracted ; it has only professed to shew that there is no evi- 
dence that death has any empire over mind — over the living 
agent, properly called man — no evidence that the destruction 
of man's bodily organs is the destruction of himself. And I 
trust that I may now set aside any presumption which rested 
itself on the exploded supposition. 

I now proceed to review the more direct evidence which 
reason furnishes of the immortality of man. 

First, The doctrine of immortality has the consent of the 
species. I do not affirm that every individual man has held 
the belief. As often as we find the Atheist, we find an ob- 
jector. But, the fact of universal consent is not disturbed by 
individual exceptions. Every people, how deep soever their 
degradation, have looked beyond death. The rude heathen is 
not to be excepted. In their war-songs they invoke the pre- 
sence and inspiration of their warlike sires. In their social 
chaunts they celebrate anticipated banquets with their de- 
parted compeers. Their mythologies point into a future state 
— to regions of the blessed, where the virtuous and brave 
enjoy their rewards — to regions of darkness and punishment 
where the cowardly and vicious suffer. It matters not that 
all traces of ancient civilisation have been obliterated, that 
modern civilisation has not recalled them from savagery and 
brute ignorance, they cherish the tradition of a spirit-land, 
where they shall rejoin the society of those whom they love. 
The doctrine of immortality has been questioned, but never by 
the many. The philosophic few, who have silenced the in- 
stincts of nature alone, have made it a matter of controversy. 
Their contentions have not interested the mass. All their 
arguments, in their form and in their spirit, shew that they 
are combating a universal sentiment ; and, though they be 
giants, they are as giants in conflict with the elements. And 
they contradict themselves. In the philosophic treatise — 
the outbirth of their speculative faculties— they deny and 
object, but in the oration in which they have to speak to the 
heart of humanity, and in the fleeting epistle in which the 
man forgets his system and his part, and fur the time yields to 
his impulse, the doctrine against which their philosophy is 
directed receives honour. It is still their hope — their con- 
viction. In their treatises they have not merely been argu- 



THE i:.IMORTALITY OF :j:aX.. 31 

ing down a sentiment of their race, but a sentiment of their 
own bosoms, and they have not succeeded. A strong effort at 
denial was made in the eighteenth centurj ; but that century 
imprudently attempted to deny everything. It is not to an 
age so flippant and superficial that we would look for either 
a good healthy denial, or a good healthy belief. Carlyle truly 
speaks of it as the pasteboard age. But even that age could 
not look death in the face without faltering out a confession 
of immortality. Modern enterprise has occasionally deceived 
itself as to the sentiments of savage tribes among which it has 
been cast. It has affirmed of some tribes, entire ignorance of a 
future state. The cases are iil-ascertained : in some instances 
patient investigation has dissipated the too-hasty assertion. 
Some superstition has at length been detected ; some spirit-tale 
— the burdened soul's sigh after immortality — over-heard, and 
the dream of an atheistical tribe confuted. In a word, the 
induction now sweeps over a field so wide, comprehend in its 
interrogatory so many instances, that it is not too much to say 
that no discovery can now be made sufficient to shake the general 
conclusion, namely, that the doctrine of immortality has the 
consent of the species. 

It is fair to remind you now that the burden of proof pro- 
perly lies with those who question or deny a sentiment which 
tlie race has sanctioned. A sentiment which has universal 
consent is not usually asked to prove itself: it says let me be 
disproved. But we have voluntarily abandoned this resort of 
polemical tactics. We, therefore ask, whence could this sen- 
timent originate ? In philosophic speculation ? Facts smile 
at the suggestion. Tribes whom philosophy has never deigned 
to visit (for philosophy has no missionary spirit), have fondly 
entertained it. Among tribes which are civilized and learned, 
philosophic speculation has often been its chief enemy. Does 
some one trace the sentiment to false education? It is mere 
trifling. Tribes and individuals subject to educative influ- 
ences of the most diverse character have maintained it. Then, 
to account for it by educative influence explains nothing. It 
leaves the difficulty untouched. For, from whence does the 
educative influence brought to bear upon one generation pro- 
ceed ? It proceeds from the general belief of the previous 
generation. In the educative influence which is advanced to 



32 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

account for a general belief, there lurks a general belief 
which has itself to be accounted for. The man who runs the 
course of this argument finds that it sets him down at the 
close at the point from which he started at the beginning. Is 
Christianity charged with the honour ? It is sufficient ^o 
answer, that before Christianity cast its light upon the path- 
way of humanity, this sentiment struggled for expression in 
the human bosom, found its counterpart in religious rites, its 
evidence in religious hopes ; and that in parts of the world into 
whose darkness Christianity hasnotyet shot its light, whose rov- 
ing savages have had no communication with Christendom, and 
have not conceived of a revelation from the Great Spirit — 
the song, the funeral rite, and the solemn religious pledge, are 
the traditional indicators of this faith. Only one answer is 
satisfactory. Nature itself teaches us. It is an instinct of 
humanity. It is written upon the folds of our deepest con- 
sciousness ; the finger of our Creator has traced the character. 
Man entertains the idea of immortality because he is im- 
mortal. It is the oracle of his nature, which is the voice of 
his God. This leaves nothing unexplained. The former 
lecturer triumphantly established the responsibility of man 
from the fact that men universally distinguish between right 
and wrong — have a universal consciousness of responsibility ; 
and I now argue that man is immortal from the fact that the 
sentiment of immortality is found to be universal. 

There is a lower ground which might be occupied were the 
universality of the sentiment denied, which can only be done 
by ignorance. Every man is capable of the sentiment and 
hope of immortality. He can respond to the idea. He finds 
that it is entertainable. He can cherisb the hope and feel 
that it agrees with him, and invests him with a new and con- 
gruous dignity. The most degraded tenant of the desert and 
the bush, can be made to understand it, to submit to disciplines 
which imply it, to construct hoj^es which point to it. 

Now we hold it to be demonstrable that no creature has been 
constituted with a capacity to entertain ideas, to frame hopes, 
which go beyond the possible range of its existence. We 
a^ssume that the creating mind is perfect, and that the original 
plan and constitution of things is perfect. This no one who 
admits a creating mind has ever questioned. But to create 



IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 33 

a being with a capacity by which it could entertain ideas and 
hopes beyond the possible range of its existence, would be an 
imperfection in the constitution of thino-s. Any creature thus 
constituted would be doomed to perpetual illusion and disap- 
pointment by a cruel law of its life. It would be led aside 
from the end of its existence by false indicators. Its plans 
and liopes would point to a theatre of existence which it 
was destined never to reach. It would fatigue itself in con- 
stant eiforts to OTerleap the natural barriers of its being. It 
would be discontented with its partition. Every hour it would 
strike itself with pain and chagrin against the limits of its too 
confined economy. Disappointed in not reaching the higher 
platform of existence to w^hich its noblest instincts pointed, 
it would recoil with disgust from the destiny to w^hich an un- 
kind fate had fettered it. A creation conceived on this plan, 
would *"' groan and travail in pain together,'' by a necessity of 
its law, by a defect in its constitution. €reation would no 
longer be a cosmos but a chaos — no longer order but con- 
fusion. And if we look around on the animal creation be-- 
neath us, we shall find a confirmation of this view. The 
brute creation is contented with the limited circle in 
which it moves. It takes things as it finds them, and enter- 
tains no idea beyond. It never rises on the wing of hope. 
The evidence is, that it never projects any line of action 
which does not rise and run its €ourse, and terminate within 
the routine of its material existence. It were trifling with a 
serious argument to say that we know not what ideas the 
brute entertains. "We do know that its thoughts rise not 
above this state. It makes no progression ; it puts forth no 
effort after it. Successive generations of men exhibit a pro- 
gression. Each one makes the attainments of its predecesor 
its foot-ground ; the goal of its predecessor its starting-point 
of renewed effort in an onward and upward course. The brute 
creation participates not in this progress, sympathises not with 
this ambition. It remains under its original restrictions, and 
no cry of discontent barsts from it. " The insect riots through 
its blithesome hour. The bird sings among the branches. In 
the great and wide sea leviathan plays.'' Each one fulfils its 
idea ; its yearnings are in harmony with its condition ; no 
greed is left unsatisfied to awaken discontent and prompt to 

NO. Ill, 



34 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

effort to rise to a source of satisfaction. The Creator 
" openeth his hand, and satisfieth the desire of every living 
thing.'' But man cherishes ideas of imraortalitv, or is capable 
of cherishing them. And, if we be not immortal, surely there 
would be no injustice in the reproach which would rise from 
every breast, why, then, were we made to cherish the idea and 
the hope ? Why were we not constituted as the brutes, that, 
like them, we might riot in the indulgence of the hour, that 
we might say, let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die ? If 
we are not immortal, we are driven to the conclusion that our 
constitution is imperfect and a perpetual mockery. But it is 
not so. Man is immortal. This explains everything. The 
brutes were not made to be gratified in their every desire, 
and man to be denied in his highest instinct. I quote the 
words of the late Dr Hamilton on this point. ^' We argue 
that as man can meditate his immortality he cannot be less 
than immortal. But man feels — except when the fear of con- 
sequences drives back the desire — a powerful bias and aspira- 
tion towards such perpetuation of being. He shudders at the 
prospect of nonentity. Death is dreadful because it cuts him 
off from the light and land of the living, but it is relieved if it 
open the gate of another life, or rather of a continuous 
one. This is the yearning of the soul. And who does not 
observe the provision which is made to meet every deep- 
implanted need and longing of the vast animation around us ? 
The Universal Parent satisfies the desire of every living 
thing. Surely, then, this lofty tending and greed, so charac- 
teristic of man, so peculiar to him, so true to his proper 
reason, so interwoven with his superior condition, is not the 
only one which shall find no encouragement and scope, is not 
the only one reserved to be shamed and mocked!" 

Secondly, We argue the immortality of man. from the as- 
piring and ambitious character of his mind, taken in connec- 
tion with the fact that it does not realise its complement in 
this state. This fact was necessarily touched upon, and to 
some extent illustrated as an element in the last argument ; 
but it is of importance sufficient to justify its erection into a 
separate and independent pillar of the doctrine which we de- 
fend. The unresting and insatiable character of human am- 
bition has been the theme of all observers. All history de- 



IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 35 

clares that it is never satisfied — that no conquest realizes its 
ideal. It still thirsts, still aspires. This is no specific pro- 
perty of what we call ambitious minds. It is a generic fea- 
ture ; it peculiarizes man. The faculties of man are first 
evoked into activity by some objects which promise satisfac- 
tion, but no sooner are they obtained than they cease to please. 
Tbe child in its nursery, casting away the toy for which it 
panted an hour ago for something new, is a type of man. In 
the nursery is enacted the drama of human life. Man ever 
sees before him some eminence which he wishes to scale. He 
cherishes the illusion that there are ihore verdant fields there 
— that there are more beautiful flowers there — that there is a 
clearer and more genial atm.osphere there. He turns his face 
to the steep — he wriggles up the untrodden pathway — the 
jagged precipice does not daunt his ambition, it only nerves 
him to a more vigorous effort ; he perseveres until he stands 
bleeding but triumphant on the eminence to v;bich his eye has 
guided him. Here the excitement of success for a moment 
persuades him that the picture of his hope w^as not over- 
coloured ; novelty charms him for the hour, but with the hour 
the novelty and the charm cease. He sees an eminence still 
higher, why should he not ascend to it ? It seems to rise 
into still serener regions. It haunts his imagination. Before 
its clustering beauties, seen in the distance, the beauties 
which immediately surround him are commonplace. He won- 
ders that he could ever have been attracted by them ; now 
they are only fitted to disgust. He girds himself for a new 
ascent, struggles with the same difficulties, has his struggles 
crowned with the same success ; and, though in the delirium 
of the hour of victory, he thinks and says that he is now on 
the very summit of his ambition, scarcely has the exulting 
language dropt from his lips till he finds everything become 
dull and insipid ; and already is his eye fixed on another 
peak. And, as the man who, ascending a lofty mountain^ 
from time to time persuades himself that the peak immediate- 
ly above him, on which he gazes, is the summit, and finds 
from time to time that it is only the base of a new elevation — 
is led on by the very illusion to w^hich he is subject to scale 
height after height, in the expectation of finding himself at 
last at a point from which he shall be able to view the wide 



36 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

panorama beneath ; so in this condition of life is man con- 
stantly attracted up bj illusion, and, notwithstanding disap- 
pointment, constantly goaded up by discontent and drawn by 
hope. This is the true description of human life. Man is 
never contented with the possessions of the present.^ 
Some golden, bewitching dream of the future inter- 
feres with his enjoyment and drags him away from it. In 
fact, paradoxical as it may seem, man lives not in the present 
but in the future. We have no instance of a man sitting 
down to an enjoyment of the possessions of the present, how- 
ever large, and seeming satisfactory to those around him, 
without any aspiring reference to the possible possessions 
of the future. Visions of the future disturb his rest 
among realities of the present. Some friend may lead us to 
a distant cottage, engirdled with scenes of nature's serenest 
peacefulness, itself beautiful, and embosomed in a region of 
the most smiling beauty, and bringing forth the open- 
browed cottager, may say, " This man have I found con- 
tented." But this very ceremonious introduction with which 
our friend has honoured his protege itself informs us that he 
thinks that in this man he has found an exception to his race. He 
has excited his surprise almost as much, as on the first occasion 
of its appearance, the animal smote with surprise the workman 
in the quarry, when, after suffering a living entombment for 
many ages in the bosom of the rock, it sprang into day and liber- 
ty under his gaveloc, as he rent its stony cerement away. Our 
friend feels that his protege is an exception, and his assiduous 
producing of him is a sort of inverse illustration of the uni- 
versal fact which w^e maintain. And yet, if we look closely 
in upon the routine of this man's peaceful engagements, we 
shall probably find that he is only a seeming exception ; that 
his cottage-ambitions, although unobtrusive, are not the less 
real ; that his aspirings are only different from those of the 
men with whom our circumstances and vocation make us more 
familiar. Every rank in life has its peculiar style of ambi- 
tion ; but, in so far as the illustration of the position (that 



* The contentment of the Christian supplies no objection to this. His 
fonteiitment is derived from a satisfying view of the future. His language 
is, '' If in this life only we have hope, we ai'e of ail men most miserable." 



INMORTALITY OF MAN. 37 

man never rests in possession) is concerned, the ambition of 
the cottager, which terminates on some mean and gross thing, 
is as complete as the ambition of the conspirator, whose genius 
beckons him to empire, whose ambition paints him to a throne. 

And in the full career of this ambition death finds man. 
It finds him unsatisfied, still scheming for his satisfaction. 
When the curtain drops it is on a man whose gaze is still up- 
ward, in disgust with the present, in hope from the future. His 
material eye may be dimmed, and the step of his body irreso- 
lute, but the eye of his mind has not dimmed, the natural 
force of his ambition has not abated. He dies unsatisfied 
with anything that the earth can give him. As he waves his 
adieus to time his w^ords are those of the wise man, *' All is 
vanity." 

What, then, are we to infer from this unresting and insa- 
tiable quality of the human mind ? What mean these in- 
effable loncings, which spurn the fulness of present possession, 
and aspire after the shadowy, shifting, unexperienced joys of 
the future ? What means this high greed of the soul, which 
grasps at everything, as with the eagerness of famine, and, 
unsatisfied, straightway drops it as with the disgust of satiety ? 
What means it that, the same Being having created man and 
this theatre of man's existence, he should be found unsatisfied 
with its deepest joys, still aspiring from its highest eminen- 
ces ? What means it ? It means that man is destined to a 
wider, grander theatre of existence. It means that there is 
another life for man. It points us to a nobler destiny in re- 
serve. In the terms of our proposition- — it declares man im- 
mortal. 

Do I then say that the Creator of man has put him in a 
theatre of existence unsuited to him ? No ; it is only unsuit- 
ed to his ultimate developments. Man is a creature of 
growth and training. If the line of his life be indefinitely 
extended forward, it has also an interminable inclination up- 
wards. His unending life is also in the original consti- 
tution of things an unending growth. His dignity shall 
rise into sublimity, his excellence soar into God-likeness. 
Has the Creator, then, placed man in a theatre of existence 
unsuited to him ? No. This is only the scene of his earliest 



38 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

discipline. Here he is surrounded with the instruments of 
his first training. As yet we have only the first buddings of 
the ideal man. And the very unsatisfactoriness of earth's 
things is here a necessary element in his training ; the very 
difiaculties with w^hich he has to struggle are full of plastic 
energy in moulding his manhood. It is thus that this earliest 
disciplinary scene, with its school-room appliances, acts in 
training and unfolding man : the crude matter which man 
has to suhdue into forms of utility and grace teaches him 
science — science, the already pregnant mother of art ; and 
science and art expand and ennoble the man, and enable liis 
spirit to cast off the despotic nightmares which malignantly 
lord it over the ignorant. Man's intercourse with society, and 
acquaintance with this great universe, generate in the chambers 
of his mind those impressions, sentiments, hopes, fears, and 
beliefs, which we find in the multiform outbirth of our litera- 
ture and in the thoughtful speech of men. The mountainous 
and rocky barriers which man finds crossing his course in this 
world, through which he must tunnel the pathway of his pro- 
gress, or which he must surmount by fearless gradients, string 
his powers into brave vigour, and impart to them manliness 
and decision. Religion — the highest prize of humanity — 
comes in upon the soul from the open pages of nature, (and in 
this time, under the reign of moral evil, from the radiant sup- 
plementary scrolls of revelation,) and is nursed into strength 
by the appliances of a disciplinary providence. This scene of 
man's life is a training scene. Here his first unfoldings are 
effected. The scene is fitted to this — is fitted wath instru- 
ments for the accomplishment of this. It is not fitted for his 
ultimate developments, and man with the sure instincts of 
his nature in him^ constantly aspires higher and seeks away, 
(if not confessedly and consciously, yet implicitly and certain- 
ly, in the unsatisfied craving of his heart,) to a land which 
shall furnish the means of supplying his miost unresting crav- 
ings with provision meet and sutficient, in whose light he 
may expand, amid whose sublimities he may rise. 

Thirdlifj We argue the immortality of man from his con- 
stitution and circumstances as a responsible being. 

The former lecturer has taken from my shoulders the re- 



IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 39 

sponsibility of proving that man is responsible. I therefore 
assume it. In ordinary circumstances I should assume it, in 
an argument such as this, as a truth which has been hon- 
oured with universal consent. But in this series of lectures, in 
which it is our object to prove the fundamental principles of 
our religion to those who may question them, or who may be 
candidly enquiring ; and, perhaps, I should say, in this genera- 
tion, when human responsibility has been prominently called 
in question, I should have had to submit to the encumbering 
of my argument, which would have been involved in proving 
my proof, had not the former lecturer far more effectively 
done this work than I could ever hope to have done it. 

I assume, therefore, the fact of responsibility, and there is 
an interesting fact in the history of the doctrine which bears 
upon this argument. Those who were consciously responsible, 
seem, in many instances at least, to have felt that this life is 
too limited a theatre for the purposes of moral government — 
for the purposes of reward and punishment. They felt that 
the power with which they had to do might continue unfa- 
vourable in another state ; and for this the rites of their religion 
made provision in propitiatory offerings for the dead. Some 
may smile at the idea of drawing arguments from the pheno- 
mena of systems so crude as the systems of ancient idolatry. 
But where it is a question of human instinct, the voice of 
nature, as in the case before us, we must look to these sys- 
tems of errors — degrading congeries of absurdities though 
they were — for it is in them that the instincts of humanity are 
expressed, groping their way in darkness, we admit, yet there 
and manifesting themselves. 

And if we look closely and ingenuously at this idea — that 
this life is too limited a theatre for the purposes of moral 
government, for the purposes of reward and punishment 
— we shall find that to it at least there attaches no 
absurdity. If it may not be said that this life is too 
short (we can scarcely be able to pronounce on such a ques • 
tion), it may at least be said that it is too much at the disposal 
of the responsible agent himself to be the only opportunity 
which the moral government of our Creator has of inflicting 
its punishments, or bestowing its rewards. Were life 
brought to a termination in a regular course by the Creator, 



40 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTTAXITT. 

we might suppose that he inflicted death only when the pur- 
poses of his government had been served in the individual — 
when he had received the reward which his merit cLaimed, or 
endured the punishment which his demerit deserved. But so 
loiig as man has the power to break in upon his own life, it is 
clear that upon the supposition of moral government being 
confined to this state, he has the power of defeating it. On 
committing some great offence against imperial justice, he 
might, to avoid the punishment which he dreaded, by the act 
of his own hand plunge into oblivion and nothingness. A 
prize would be put by this system on suicide. And, indeed, 
it astonishes us that this is not a more general resort of such 
as hold this creed. It seems to give evidence that they are 
truer to their instincts than their logic — that even in them, 

" The dread of something after death 
.... Puzzles the ayiII." 

We should justly consider the human government which had 
no means of securing those who violated its laws, during the 
term that was necessary to make them examples of its seve- 
rity, as most lax and imperfect ; and this system would vir- 
tually fasten this charge upon the government of the universe. 

There is another consideration. The last act of a man's 
life, in the very act of committing which death strikes him 
dov/n — how are the sanctions of law to reach it, on the 
supposition that there is not another life ? If it be reward- 
able, the man loses his reward — if punishable, he eludes his 
punishment. 

But we leave this narrower view to look over a wider field. 
This world is the theatre of a moral government. Xow, it 
must be laid down as a first principle that all the decisions of 
the Governor of the Universe are entirely equitable. He must 
judge righteous judgment. Natural and revealed religion 
alike — the religion of the Deist and the religion of the Chris- 
tian alike aifirm that the Governor of the Universe must be 
supposed to act equitably. But taking this for granted, and 
on the supposition that moral government is confined to this 
world, how many enigmas have we to solve ! how many start- 
ling and stunning difi&culties present themselves ! '' Sentence 
against an evil work is not executed speedily." " Behold these 
are the ungodly who prosper in the world : they increase in 



IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 41 

riches." " There is a vanity which is done upon the earth ; 
that there be just men unto \vhora it happeneth according to 
the work of the wicked ; again, that there be wicked men to 
whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous.'* 
No one can fail to see that if the system of moral government 
terminate here, a cloud rests upon the character of the Gover- 
nor which can never be removed. We see the triumph of 
sensuality and selfishness in its multiform guises. Here no 
law of right and goodness enforces its sanction — no lawgiver 
asserts his claim. Everything is incomplete. But suppose 
another life, in which the law of the universe shall enforce its 
claims and its sanctions, in which full satisfaction shall be 
given to imperial justice — the enigma is solved, the stunning 
difficulties disappear, the clouds roll away from the character 
of the lawgiver, and he has eternity in which to vindicate him- 
self. This argument makes a future life necessary by the 
most rigorous process. But some one says that truth 
and right always ultimately triumph in the world — that 
the truth which in one generation is an outcast is received by 
the next generation as a friend — and that history always does 
honour to the good, howsoever they may have been despised 
while they lived. But this only makes the case the more af- 
fecting, and shows the more strikingly that the upshot of the 
moral government under which these good men were placed 
was unjust to them. In their case the verdict of history is 
the impeachment of God. Placed under a moral government 
they did the battles of truth and goodness, but they were 
trampled down by an unbelieving age — and this was the end 
of them. Was this justice ? But their successors honour 
them. Will this co'jnterbalance and make reparation ? You 
may chant their names in golden numbers at your feasts in 
honour of the great and good. This cannot make amends to 
them ; you can only impeach the moral government which 
allowed them to be crushed. But give that government an 
adequate theatre ; suppose that the martyrs and heroes who 
lived and died for truth have only passed into another state 
where justice benignantly bestows her rewards and severely 
inflicts her punishment, the whole matter is cleared up. Our 
sense of right is not shocked. Provision is made to vindicate 
the law and honour the good. We repeat that this argument. 



4:2 ETIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

whicli our time hinders us from more fully developing, malces 
a future life necessary by the most rigorous process of reason- 
ing. 

There are many arguments which are usually advanced in 
proving the immortality of man which I have passed without 
notice. I have not done so in ignorance, but in doubt of them. 
I have pressed into the service no argument in which I had 
not full confidence, lest any one should confound the weakness 
of an argument with the weakness of a cause. 

To a modern theory of immortality I give but a sentence. 
It has been lately affirmed that immortality is conditional, 
*' that it is itself a reward, and its denial a punishment," that 
the good only are immortal. 1 remark, that neither punish- 
ment nor reward can change the nature of the being upon 
whom they pass. If a creature during life violates a law, for 
that creature merely to cease to exist is not to endure the de- 
served punishment, but to escape it. 

My aro^ument is closed. To my own mind no truth is more 
abundantly and conclusively evidenced than the immortality of 
man. The aro-ument is not out of place in a series of lectures 
on the Evidences of Christianity, for, to conclude in the words 
of another, " It forms the peculiar excellence and honour of 
rel'gion, that it accommodates to this property of our nature 
— that it holds out a prize suited to our high calling — that 
there is a grandeur which can fill and surpass the imagination 
— that it dignifies the present scene by connecting it with 
eternity — that it reveals to the eye of faith the glories of an 
imperishable world— and how, from the high eminencies of 
heaven, a cloud of witnesses are looking down upon the earth, 
not as a scene for the petty anxieties of time, but as a splendid 
theatre for the ambition of immortal spirits.'' 



( 43 ) 



LECTUEE III. 

MAN'S EESPONSIBILITT, 

('co>'tinued) 

mm SPECIAL RErEEEXCE TO THE " SOCIAL BIBLE" 

OF EGBERT OWEN. 

BY THE REV. VriLLIAM WILSON. 



It is not our object in these Lectures to demonstrate tbe 
being of a God. Our business, as I understand, is not with 
professed Atheists. At all events, in examining the rrincipies 
contained in Mr Robert Owen's Social Bible, it is not neces- 
sary to enter upon the evidence by which the existence of a 
God is proved. The fact is admitted by him that God is. 
We are entitled therefore in this argument to assume it as 
true. While I say this, however, it is necessary to observe 
that I by no means agree with Mr Owen in his statement that 
the facts are yet unknown to man which indicate what that 
power is which we call God. This m.uch, at le^st, he admits 
we do know concerning God, that he is the cause of all ex- 
istences. It is with this fact alone that we have to do in this 
branch of our argument. God is the first cause — the cause of 
all existences. This proposition being admitted, it must ob- 
viously have a most important bearing upon the question of 
man's responsibility, or at all events of his agency. The 
whole theory of causation, indeed, involves the idea of a first 
cause. For what is causation, if it be not a series or chain 
of events linked together by what we call causes — having a 
fixed and definite relation to one another, which we call cause 



44 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and effect. But to suppose the chain endless seems absurd, 
and inconsistent with the idea of effects or results. Every 
succeeding link in the chain of causation, as we trace it back, 
is proved to be an effect of some preceding cause — the com- 
mencement being God. 

But, admitting God as the primary cause of all existence, 
does it not follow that all those phenomena which we call 
causes are necessarily effects of the first cause, related to him 
in certain and invariable sequence ? Strictly speaking, can 
there be any other than a first cause ? Does not the relation 
of cause and effect imply that all causes were involved in the 
first ? Is not every secondary cause necessarily linked in the 
way of sequence to that which preceded it ? And is it not 
true that, being produced, it could be nothing else than what 
it is ? Is it possible that there can be an independent cause, 
other than the first, the origin of all causes ? Does God 
create what is in any sense independent of himself? Such 
questions as these, which involve their own answer, are ex- 
ceedingly perplexing. For, on the supposition of a first cause, 
from which all existence flows, and, consequently, all modes 
and qualities of existence, it seems to follow that whatever 
evil may exist God is the author of it — that it could not have 
been otherwise than it is, no creature having independent 
power to change or modify it. It seems also to follow that 
man, being in the strictest sense a necessary agent, or rather, 
in all respects an effect of pre-existing causes, has no controul 
over his own actions, and, consequently, cannot be an object 
of moral judgment on account of them. 

This is very much the position taken up by a writer to whom 
my attention has been solicited, in a little work entitled. Two 
Lectures on Free Agency versus Orthodoxy. I state this, 
however, with some degree of hesitation, for I have not been 
able precisely to ascertain whether the lecturer means to assert 
the existence of God, and, consequently, to deny the free 
agency of man : or, on the other hand, to assert free agency 
and deny the existence of a God, I cannot consent, in these 
circumstances, to enter upon a detailed examination of his 
work. He appears exclusively in the character of an objector 
to what I am not here to assert and vindicate. In all fairness 
he should exhibit and seek to vindicate his own beliefs, not to 



man's responsibility. 45 

assume tlie character of a mere destructive ; but having tried 
to prove that every body else is wrong, be vras surely bound 
to tell us wbat is right and true. 

If, however, he does not adopt the atheistic position, and 
maintain that there is no God, he then appears simply as a 
denier of free agency. I am difj)osed to believe that this is 
his position ; and if so, he by no means goes beyond in his 
reasoning what has been asserted and proved by many ortho- 
dox divines. Free agency, in the sense in vrhich he uses the 
term, as implying an unbiassed will equally predisposed to 
good or evil, has been denied by many of the most eminent 
thinkers and theologians in ancient or modern times. While 
protesting against the use of such language as he employs — 
language which I may be permitted to say shews any thing 
rather than a reverence for truth, I have no hesitation in ad- 
mitting the soundness of many of his conclusions. They are 
substantially such as had been arrived at by Augustin of old, 
by Martin Luther, by Calvin, by Jonathan Edwards, and, in 
our own day, by Dr Chalmers. I am not concerned, therefore, 
to answer these lectures, in whatever way I am to understand 
them. If they are intended to be athiestic, T am not here to 
prove the existence of a God. If they deny free agency, I 
deny it too, in the only sense in which he uses the term, that 
is, I deny that man's will is unbiassed, self originated, self- 
determining. It is too obvious, both from the place which the 
will occupies in our mental constitution, and the felt tendency 
towards evil manifested from the earliest dawn of conscious- 
ness, that man's will is not free, and this altogether apart from 
the question whether such a thing is possible in the relation of 
a creature to the Creator. 

It is right also, at this stage of the argument, frankly and 
fully to confess that I am not able and will not attempt to 
reconcile the doctrine of human responsibility with what has 
been called philosophical necessity. It is not needful for me 
to exhibit the harmony which may exist between the two, it is 
my business to attend to the evidence in favour of each — to 
examine and sift that evidence in every possible way, and if 
it prove satisfactory, to yield my assent to it. It is quite true 
that I cannot believe a proposition which is self- contradictory, 
but 1 am bound, on competent evidence, to believe what may 



46 EVIDENCES OF CHKISTIANTTT. 

be inexplicable. In point of fact, I do believe such things in 
many instances every day. I cannot trace the connection be- 
tween life and the motion of my heart's blood. I cannot even 
trace the connection between life and voluntary motion, how 
it is that my will controuls my body. I simply know it as a 
fact. Again, I cannot believe two propositions which explicitly 
contradict one another ; but I am bound to believe, on com- 
petent evidence, propositions which I cannot reconcile. The 
link which connects and harmonizes them may lie far beyond 
the range of my observation, the evidence which establishes 
them Hiay lie quite within my reach. There is nothing more 
truly philosophical than to be a humble listener to evidence, 
to discriminate logically, to be able to weigh and test it. 
There is nothing more characteristic of the ignorance which 
so long kept the world barbarous, than to theorize and build 
up castles of logic without a basis of facts. 

In sound philosophy, then, regarding this subject, there are 
two questions, and only two, to which it is competent to insist 
for an answer, and these are — first, Are the two propositions 
self-contradictory, plainly and explicitly inconsistent with one 
another ? And supposing this answered in the negative, the 
second question is, What evidence have we in favour of each ? 
I do not deny the desirableness of knowing something beyond 
this. I would encourage all attempts to reconcile the two pro- 
positions, to discover their connecting link, and to shew the 
harmony which exists between them. I merely say that I 
have not discovered it, either in the writings of others, or by 
my own reflections upon it, that I will not attempt to harmon- 
ize the two statements, and that there is no need of my doing 
so. I have exhausted the obligation which lies upon me in 
the ma^tter, when I prove tha,t they are not contradictory, and 
shew that there is sufficient evidence to believe both. 

The two propositions are, first. That the will is determined 
by motives. Second, That the acts of the will are, notwith- 
standing, objects of praise or blame — that is to say, moral 
acts, and;, consequently, that men are punishable orrewardable 
on account of them. 

The first question regarding these propositions is, Are they 
inconsistent,, so manifestly inconsistent, as to render it impos- 
sible for us to believe both ? 



MA>' S KESFO>fSIBILITT. 47 

Before we could affirm their inconsisteriCj, it would be 
necessary for us to comprehend fully the nature of a first cause 
— what precisely was involyed in it — and the relation it bears 
to all other causes. More especially it would be necessary for 
us to comprehend the precise relation between a first catse, 
and an intelligent and voluntary agent such as njan is. But 
we do not fully know these things. The nature of God is 
confessedly unsearchable. The nature of man himself is to 
us in many respects a mystery. Do we even understand the 
nature of causation ? If so, what is it ? The highest and 
most subtle minds have been perplexed to answer, and have 
ingenuously confessed that they hnow no more of it than is 
implied in the terms antecedent and consequent, that is, that 
the cause precedes the effect. Others, again, have assumed 
that there is in the cause a power inevitably to produce the 
effect. But what this power is, and what the precise relation 
between cause and effect, is unknown. 

But, supposing we admit all that is alleged or assumed on 
this subject, do we denionstrate the irresponsibility of man ? 
Suppose it proved that we are necessary agents, that is, agents 
operated upon by causes, which must produce their results of 
whatever kind, do we cease then to be moral agents ? 

To this I answer, in the Jirst place, that whatever I do will- 
ingly, becomes on that account my ovai act, under whatever 
law of causation the will may have been moved. By willing 
to do a thing, I make the act of doing it my own. My will 
becomes the cause or agent of all that fiows from that act. 
By thus making it mine, I become responsible for ir. It is 
not to the purpose to tell me that my will was necessarily 
moved by antecedent causes. Grant that this is true, what I 
do willingly does, notwithstanding, hecome my act, and what- 
ever character belongs to that act is attributable to me. It is 
an act which, because it is voluntary, is done by me of choice, 
and this renders it a moral act. That that choice should be 
self-originated, does not enter into my moral judgment of it. 
All that 1 am competent to determine, is the question, was the 
act voluntary ? And, if so, my conscience instinctively pro- 
nounces a moral judgment upon it, approving or disapproving. 

I answer, in the second place^ that the fact of my will being 
d termined by motives enters into mj very conception of 



48 EYIDExXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

moral agency. In other words, so far from being obliged in 
order to make out that an act possesses a moral character, 
that the will to perform it determines itself, it is an essen- 
tial ingredient in my moral judgment that the reverse was 
the case — namely, that the will was determined by adequate 
motives. It is quite true that liberty is essental to morality. 
But can we have any higher notion of liberty than that 
a person has opportunity of doing as he pleases? He that 
has scope to do what he wills is a free agent in the only sense 
in which we can comprehend the term. Xor is it necessary 
to our notion of freedom, that a man acts in a state of indiffe- 
rence. The reverse, indeed, is very nearly true. The stronger 
inclination a man has for the doing of a thing, with so much 
the greater freedom does he act it out. Since this is so, the 
power of motives over the will does not destroy its freedom, 
and, consequently, does not destroy the moral character of its 
acts and determinations. On this subject I may be permitted 
to quote the unanswerable argument of Jonathan Edwards — 
*' If there be an approach to a moral necessity in a man's exer- 
tion of good acts of the will, they being the exercise of a 
strong propensity to good, and a very powerful love to virtue ; 
it is so far from being the dictate of common sense, that he is 
less virtuous and the less to be esteemed, loved, and praised ; 
that it is agreeable to the natural notions of all mankind that 
he is so much the better man, worthy of greater respect and 
higher commendation. And the stronger the inclination is, 
and the nearer it approaches to necessity in that respect, or 
to impossibility of neglecting the virtuous act, or of doing a 
vicious one, still the more virtuous and worthy of higher 
commendation. And, on the oth^r hand, if a man exerts evil 
acts of mind, as, for instance, acts of pride or malice, from a 
rooted and strong habit or principle of haughtiness and mali- 
ciousness, and a violent propensity of heart to such acts ; ac- 
cording to the natural sense of men, he is so far from being 
the less hateful and blameable on that account, that he is so 
much the more worthy to be detested and condemned by all 
that observe him. Moreover, it is manifest that it is no part 
of the notion which mankind commonly have of a blameable 
or praiseworthy act of the wil], that it is an act which is not 
determined by an antecedent bias or motive, but by the sove- 



man's responsibility. 49 

reign power of the will itself ; because, if so, the greater hand 
such causes have in determining any acts of the will, so much 
the less virtuous or vicious would they be accounted ; and the 
less hand, the more virtuous or vicious. Whereas, the reverse 
is true; men do not think a good act to be the less praise- 
worthy for the agent being much determined in it by a good 
inclination or a good motive, but the more. And if good in- 
clination or motive has but little influence in determining the 
agent, they do not think his act so much the more virtuous, 
but the less. And so concerning evil acts which are deter- 
mined by evil motives or inclinations." 

I do not affirm that, by the preceding arguments, I have made 
out the perfect harmony of the two propositions in question ; 
but of this I am confident, that they have been proved not to 
be inconsistent, and still more, that they have not that degree 
of plain and obvious inconsistency which would render it im- 
possible for a man to believe both. The only other question, 
then, which it is competent for us to consider is. Have we suf- 
ficient evidence to believe both ? 

My answer to this question must be very brief, both because 
it is now unnecessary to enter into a very full examination of 
it, and because the topics to which 1 have yet to advert do not 
admit of a lengthened discussion of it. I take it for granted, then, 
that you believe the first proposition, and that any proof of it 
is altogether unnecessary. My previous lecture, and what I 
have now stated, would have been utterly superfluous had this 
not been your state of belief. I have proceeded upon the hy- 
pothesis that you did admit the first proposition, and that just 
because you did so you were disposed to deny the second. 

Neither will I now enter into a proof of the second proposition, 
because it was the specific object of my former lecture to esta- 
blish its truth. If I did not succeed in this I have no hope of 
doing so now ; only, if the proof then adduced be held insuffi- 
cient, I know nothing which is even capable of proof. Con- 
sciousness is the last and highe-st law of evidence. 

In the consideration of this subject, whatever you may read 
upon it, and in whatever reflections you may indulge, let me 
entreat you to keep these two things distinct from one an- 
other, namely, the consistency of the two things, and the evi- 
dence '^'y which eitner or both of them is established. They 

NO. IV. 



50 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

carry us into distinct fields of inquiry, and when they are con- 
founded, nothing but perplexity and doubt can be the issue. 
Examine as thoroughly as you please the question of consis- 
tency, but do not mix it up with the question of evidence, as if 
they were the same thing. Above all, endeavour to exercise 
this caution in your inquiries, that things are not necessarily 
irreconcileable because you do not see the way of reconciling 
them. There may be a way, if we knew it. Let us not be 
ashamed to confess our ignorance when we are ignorant. 
There is nothing so destructive to candour as this, and conse- 
quently nothing so fatal to the discovery of truth. Truth de- 
mands of her worshippers the virtues of patience and humil- 
ity, and in inquiring at her shrine we shall often find her 
refusing to respond to the demands we make. 

I am now, with the aid of the principles I have attempted 
to establish, to examine various propositions in the Social 
Bible of Mr Owen. Let me only premise that it is far from 
my purpose to write a commentary on the whole book, brief 
as it is. My object, exclusively, is to examine those proposi- 
tions which have a direct bearing on the question of man's 
responsibility. This being understood, I find the first propo- 
sition runs as follows : — '^ Experience has proved that man 
has always been the creature of the circumstances in which he 
has been placed, and that it is the character of these circum- 
stances which inevitably makes him ignorant or intelligent, 
vicious or virtuous, wretched or happy. 

On this proposition I observe, first, that it contains a large 
admixture of truth, though stated in a very perplexed and un- 
intelligible form. It is admitted, however, as probable, that 
the nature of the circumstances in which a man is placed will 
usually determine his history. A child of vicious parents, 
for example, whose mind has been familiarized from infancy 
with various forms of iniquity, and who is surrounded with 
many inducements to perpetrate it, will generally prove him- 
self an apt scholar, and his character will be as unfavourable 
as the circumstances in which he has been brought up. The 
Bible proceeds in its statements and promises upon the truth 
of this, as, for example, in the injunction, *' Train up a child 
in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
from it." And this statement implies that the converse is 



man's REijPOXSIBILITT. 51 

also true, namely, that if a child is not trained up in the way 
he should go, he will not walk in that way. All education 
j)roceeds upon it as an admitted fact. Unless we could count 
with some measure of certainty upon the results of education 
we would cease to practice it. We believe that by giving a 
good education we shall generally secure an amount of intel- 
ligence which otherwise would not have been reached ; and if 
the education be of a moral and religious kind, we look hope- 
fully for its fruits. Unless there was such a degree of proba- 
bility at least in the permanent power of such circumstances 
as these over the mind, we could have 'no motive to educate. 
And what is true of these circumstances is true of all. They 
operate upon the old as well as upon the young, with this dif- 
ference only, that previous circumstances continue to exercise 
their power over the former, to such an extent as to render a 
change of character less probable. And what is true of indi- 
viduals and particular societies is true of nations and races. 
For to what else can we attribute the differences that prevail 
among them? What makes a Scotchman different from a 
Hindoo ? If not exclusively, it is chiefly the circumstances in 
which they have respectively been placed. All persuasion ad- 
dressed to men proceeds upon this. My objection to the pro- 
position is, not that it asserts the power of circumstances over 
human character, but to the assertion of the measure of that 
power as absolute and inevitable. T would not have been 
here to address you unless I had believed in the power of cir- 
cumstances over human nature ; but you would scorn my pre- 
sumption if 1 held that this power was absolute. I hope to 
convince and persuade these results are not inevitahle. 

Were it so, I observe, secondly, that all progress and im- 
provement in society would be impossible. While, on the one 
hand, the observed power of circumstances over the character, 
constitutes the prevailing motive to all efforts in the way of 
education and improvement ; on the other hand, the admission 
of this as an absolute and inevitable power precludes the pos- 
sibility of advancement. Societj^ on this hypothesis, must be 
stationary. If men are always and inevitably what circum- 
stances have made them, it is impossible they can get into a 
better state. The circumstances can only recreate themselves 
— that which rises above them cannot be of them. It does 



0'2 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

appear extraordinaTy that Mr Owen, who proposes to re-or- 
ganize society anew, to change its whole relations, and thereby 
introduce a new order of things, and, consequently, new de- 
velopments of character, should make it the starting point of 
his system, that man is wholly the creature of circumstances, 
which work upon him inevitably and with all the certainty 
and power of the law of gravitation. It is utterly incongru- 
ous. Had the proposal been, that as man was the helpless 
victim of circumstances, he must be permitted to drift like a 
log upon the stream, I could have understood at least the con- 
sistency of the proposal. The absolute power of circumstances 
over man precludes the possibility of change. 

But it is proper, still farther, to enquire, What are circum- 
stances? What do we precisely mean when we say that man has 
always been the creature of the circumstances in which he has 
been placed ? Do we mean merely that he is a denizen of 
this w^orld, looking out upon the system of which he is a part, 
and capable of being variously influenced by it ? Do we in- 
tend to limit the meaning of the term to the natural pheno- 
mena presented to his observation in heaven and earth, to the 
influence of the sky, and sea, and land ? — to the diversities of 
hill, and dale, and river, and woodland ? These are all im- 
portant circumstances operating upon man, but are they the 
most prevalent and influential ? Experience proves that it is 
not so ; that, on the contrary, the circumstance which above 
all others determines the history and character of man, is man 
himself. When we speak of circumstances, we mean not only 
inanimate nature, but chiefly society, example, education, pro- 
mises, inducements, warnings held out by men to man. Tak- 
ing man in the aggregate, then, are we to call him the inevi- 
table creature of circumstances ? And if so, what do we mean ? 
Is it any thing else than to say that he is the inevitable crea- 
ture of himself.? For is it not true, that by far the most 
numerous and influential circumstances which act upon the 
human character, are those which have their source and origin 
in man himself? He (speaking of him collectively) has made 
the circumstances in which he lives ; and, therefore, to speak 
of him as the inevitable creature of these circumstances, is just 
to reason in a circle. 

I remark, again, that Mr Owen confutes and contradicts his 



MAN'S RESPOXSIBILITY. Oo 

own dogma in various ways. In the very proposal of his 
social system he practically confutes it. He would be com- 
pelled to contradict it were he to attempt to define what he 
means by circumstances. He directly and in terms contra- 
dicts it in the corollary to this very proposition. It is as fol- 
lows : — " It is therefore necessary to acquire a knowledge of 
the influence which individual and general circumstances have 
orer human nature." Xow, if these circumstances inevitably 
operate upon the mind, the knowledge which all minds possess 
must be a necessary sequence — not a thing to be acquired and 
sought after, but a thing already possessed. It is equivalent 
to urging a man to learn, and at the same time to tell him 
that he has all the learning possible for him already. Man, 
as the inevitable creature of circumstances, can acquire no- 
thing, any more than the earth, by an eiSPort of her own, can 
acquire fruitfulness. He is, in respect of knowledge and cha- 
racter, what circumstances have inevitably made him. Again, 
Mr Owen contradicts this proposition in the next page of his 
book, when he asserts that " man is a compound being, whose 
character is formed by his constitution or organization at birth, 
and of the effects of external circumstances upon it from birth 
to death ; such original organization and external influences 
continually acting and reacting each upon the other." Now, 
this statement, and the first statement in his book, cannot 
both be true. It is possible that neither of them maybe true, 
but one or other of them must be false. If you admit an 
action by man upon circumstances, whether that originate in 
his organization at birth, or whatever be its source, he cannot 
be the creature of circumstances. Man cannot act upon, 
modify, or change, that which creates him. The potter's ves- 
sel cannot act upon the man that makes it. If you admit an 
operation by man upon circumstances, they become, so far as 
this operation reaches, his creature, and, instead of being form- 
ed by circumstances, he moulds and modifies them. 

Again, I would remark practically, that no man is so much 
subject to the circumstances in which he is placed as to be in- 
evitably moulded by them. Every man knows and feels that 
in respect of knowledge and character he might have been 
superior to what he is ; that, in point of fact, the influence of 
circumstances over his character and condition, is not absolute 



•34 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

but limited. Xo man can say that he could not have been better 
informed than he is, for no man can honestly allege that he has 
made the best and wisest use of the opportunities he possessed. 
Mr Owen, indeed, makes his appeal to experience, and tells us, 
that experience has proved that man has always been the crea- 
ture of the circumstances in which he has been placed. Is it 
really so ? It is not enough to establish this position that, in 
point of fact, men generally have been content to be drifted 
along the stream, and have made no effort to extricate them- 
selves. Has this result been uniform, possessing all the cha- 
racter of a law of nature ? If there be an exceptional case in the 
whole history of the human family, that case goes to prove that 
circumstances do not inevitably make a man ignorant or intel- 
ligent, vicious or virtuous. The general fact merely proves, 
to the disgrace and ignominy of man, that being cast into the 
ceaselessly flowing stream of circumstances, he has slothfully 
chosen to lie upon the water, and been floated down the cur- 
rent, instead of manfully buffeting the waves, and making 
head against them — breasting the stream and surmounting its 
billows — putting forth his manful strength, and joyfully reach- 
ing the shore at last. Of such manful mould was the great 
Xewton. The fall of an apple was no new circumstance, for 
the iirst time in the history of the world obtruded upon the 
notice of man, and yet to what great and pregnant uses did 
he put it ? The circumstance of observing it was not peculiar 
to him, but the law of gravitation had never before been evolved 
from it. It was not the circumstance that inevitably made 
the discovery, but the man who had the power and the will to 
turn it to the highest uses. Of such mould was Martin Luther. 
There had been many a monk reared in convents dedicated to 
St Augustin before his day. Nothing, indeed, can be more 
uniform than the circumstances of a monk's life. Had we been 
able to affirm with certainty that any class of men would con- 
tinue to be what circumstances had made them, w^e would 
affirm it of monks. Shut up from the changes which agitate 
society and excite the mind to action — engaged in the same 
unvarying routine of services, so fitted to produce a hopeless 
torpidity, they are men the least of all likely to overcome the 
influence of circumstances. And yet it was given to this large- 
hearted noble-souled monk to be the regenerator of modern 



MAX'S RESPONSIBILITY. 55 

Europe. The battle to him was almost unexampled in its 
severity and protractedness— ^whelmed again and again be- 
neath the deep waters — his soul fainting with weariness — 
every nerve yet strained to its utmost tension — he was victo- 
rious at last. His long deadly struggle did unquestionably 
evince the great power of circumstances over the soul ; but his 
yictory, for the encouragement of all the sons of men, demon- 
strated that their power was not absolute and irresistible. 
Need I select more instances from the history of the world ? 
Knox was educated a Popish priest, and yet became the re- 
former of Scotland. Calvin was a lawyer, and yet became 
the theologian of the E^eformation. Cromwell was a rustic 
farmer, and yet he mounted the throne of Britain, and be- 
came its ablest ruler. Burns was a ploughman, and yet he 
wrote verses which have charmed the world. Mahomet was a 
travelling merchant, and yet the inventor of a system which 
has swayed one half the world for twelve hundred years. 
William Gifford was a shoemaker, and yet became the arbiter 
in taste and literature for Britain. Let no man say, then, I 
am as circumstances have made me, and can be no other. 
Shake off the growing paralysis. You can, if you will, be 
better, wiser, happier than you are. The effect of circum- 
stances is only inevitable when one chooses to make them so. 
All reforms have sprung from the victorious conquest of cir- 
cumstances. If you choose it you can be victors as well as 
others, if only you will submit to the discipline of the contest. 
Another proposition to which I must advert is as follows — 
" Man is compelled by his original constitution to receive his 
feelings and his convictions independent of his will." On 
this statement I remark generally, that, like the proposition 
I have already considered, it is in some respects and to a cer- 
tain extent true, but that as a whole it is false. A friendly 
expositor of Mr Owen's system, whose work has been handed 
to me, remarks, on this subject, "By free will it is meant, 
that of any given number of objects presented to a man's 
notice he can choose which he likes. To this rationalism says 
yes — only understand that what a man likes depends upon 
his natural and acquired taste, and on the strength of the evi- 
dence before him. This simple, yet striking and sound dis- 
tinction, is analagous to that which is to be observed between 



56 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the popular belief of Mr Owen's meaning, and that capable 
of being inferred from his fundamental facts. When he tells 
us that man is compelled, bv his original constitution, to re- 
ceive his feelings and convictions independently of his will, 
the meaning I take it is not, that man is the passive recipient of 
all feelings and all convictions, but that such as he does re- 
ceive he receives in the way stated/' 

I do not know whether I am quite at liberty to accept of 
this exposition, but suppose, for a moment, that it expresses 
Mr Owen's real meaning. Let us ascertain, if possible, what 
that meaning is. Let us again repeat the exposition. Man 
is not the passive recipient of all feelings and all convictions, 
but such as he does receive he receives in the way stated, that 
is, independently of his will. Let it be remembered that the 
definition is given by a learned expositor of the rational sys- 
tem, and then examine what it amounts to. 1. It is alleged 
that man is not passive in the reception of all feelings and 
convictions. 2. That there are some feelings and convictions 
which he does in some peculiar and emphatic sense receive. 
3. That he receives such convictions independently of his 
will. I will not venture to give a character to such reasoning, 
I only remark that in so far as man is not passive he is active, 
and that in so far as he acts he acts willingly. The selection of 
feelings and convictions necessarily implies an exercise of will. 
The act of receiving them must be an act of the will. Man 
must either be ]3assive, reflecting in the same way as a mirror 
does whatever is brought within the range of his perceptions ; 
or if he is not so, he must exercise his will in regard to the 
feelings and convictions to which he will give entertainment. 

It is frequently not a little annoying, as well as perplexing, 
to find in this as in kindred publications, half glimpses of 
truth — a glimmering discernment of certain great principles, 
united with an incapacity, arising probably from ignorance, 
to apprehend and appreciate them. Could Mr Owen tell us 
the distinction between a perception and a sensation, and by 
what process sensations become feelings and convictions ? 
We fear that all this lies beyond the range of his acquirement, 
and hence the labour we must undergo to extricate what lies 
on his pages as a chaotic mass. I remark then, on the propo- 
sition now before us, that there are involuntary sensations, 



man's responsibility. 57 

and that what is subjected to a man's senses he cannot help 
perceiving. He cannot help seeing what is submitted to his 
eye. But the act of opening the eye is voluntary, and the 
minute continued inspection of any object depends on an act 
of the will. I am not sure, indeed, but that in every case con- 
scious seeing is the result of an act of the will. There are 
many objects pictured upon the retina of the eye which we 
are not conscious of seeing. "Whenever we retain the con- 
sciousness of having seen a particular object, I believe that^we 
have been willing agents in looking at it. Something analo- 
gous to this is true in the internal operations of the mind. 
These, during our waking hours at least, are ceaseless. Of 
how many of them are we distinctly conscious? Of what 
particular truths could we say that we had been at any time 
convinced ? Of what objects, that they had excited in us cer- 
tain feelings. I answer only of those to which we have con- 
sciously attended — which we willed to bring or to keep before 
our minds. And those feelings and convictions alone become 
influential over our conduct, to which we give willing and 
welcome entertainment in our souls. The whole laws of asso- 
ciation which constitute so important and so large a part of 
our mental philosophy depend upon this. Education itself is 
conducted upon this principle, and all its valuable results 
are due to it. It is true that we cannot help seeing certain 
objects, and having certain thoughts and feelings suggested to 
our minds, but it is equally true that we can avoid the occa- 
sion of evil suggestions, that we can refuse to cherish them, 
and the giving or withholding of attention is altogether in 
our power. So far, then, from admitting, of the feelings and 
convictions I now entertain, that they occupy their place in 
my mind independently of my will, the reverse is true — they 
are there, and are what they are, as the result of the circum- 
stances in which I have chosen to place myself, of the measure 
of attention I have bestowed upon them, of my willing and 
habitual entertainment of them. That only becomes a con- 
viction of mine, the ground of which I have examined willingly 
and deliberately ; that only becomes a fealing of mine which 
I have cherished and indulged. And the more deeply I che- 
rish certain feelings and convictions, so much the more fre- 
quently will they recur to me, until they finally constitute the 



o8 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

whole tone and habit of mj mind and character. In speak- 
ing thus, I appeal to your own consciousness throughout. I 
know that I have experienced it to be so. And if the case 
stands thus, there is obviously nothing here to infringe upon 
the doctrine of responsibility. 

I proceed to quote another proposition from Mr Owen's 
book — " Each individual is so organized that his will is formed 
for him by his feelings or convictions, or both ; and that his 
whole character, physical, mental, and moral, is formed inde- 
pendently of himself." I trust no one will think it necessary, 
after what has been already stated, that I should enter at 
length into the consideration of this statement. I might con- 
tent m3\self with saying, that the consciousness of every man 
will convince him of its falsehood. If there be any one por- 
tion of our nature which is formed independently of ourselves, 
it is our physical constitution, which, possessing certain attri- 
butes at birth, and exposed to certain influences throughout 
life over which we have no controul, may appear to be alto- 
gether independent of our will. Yet it is not so. Man has 
received a rational nature, and is capable of perceiving what 
is injurious to his physical constitution, and has the power, if 
he pleases, in a large measure of avoiding it. By a due 
attention to the natural laws, by a due care in choosing what 
is beneficial to health, and rejecting what is injurious, the 
physical constitution is preserved in a comparatively healthy 
state. By despising the natural laws — by breathing a noxi- 
ous atmosphere — by taking unwholesome food or drink — it is 
irreparably injured. But till it is proved to me that one has 
not the power to refuse to eat or drink, (for eating and drink- 
ing are voluntary acts,) what he knows will injure his bodily 
health, I cannot believe Mr Owen's proposition, even to the 
limited extent that our physical character is formed indepen- 
dently of ourselves. If, then, the proposition will not hold 
good, even of our physical character, much less certainly of 
our mental and moral character. I trust I have already made 
it apparent that our present state of intellect and morals is 
the result of rejDeated acts of volition — that we are what we 
are much more because we have chosen to be so, than because 
we have been forced to become so. Had I not willed to read 
and to study, I could not have been informed of the things I 



ma^-'s responsibility. 50 

know, and which constitute mj mental character, both in re- 
spect of information and capacity. For as it is fabled of the 
gigantic Titans, that they got new life and vigour every time 
they came in contact with the earth, so is it true of every 
mental effort (which to be such must be voluntary) by which 
I overcome a difficulty and appropriate fresh information, I 
not only become possessed of greater knowledge, but my capa- 
city for attaining more is increased. With equal natural en- 
do^vments, there is an unspeakable difference in capacity 
between the man who has entered into actual conflict with and 
overcome the difficulties which lie in the path of knowledge, 
and he who has never been so exercised. But all these exer- 
cises of mind are voluntary, and, consequently, our present 
state of mind, whatever it be in respect either of attainment 
or power, is the result of our own choice. The same thing is 
yet more obviously true of our moral condition. If I have 
yielded to temptations, if, instead of discouraging evil thoughts 
and passions, I have habitually indulged them, my present 
moral character must be eminently bad, but it is because I 
have chosen to make it so. By an opposite course, say by 
reading such books as would have suggested good and pure 
thoughts — by habitual intercourse with good men — by laying 
hold of and helping myself by all moral influences accessible 
to me, my character would not have been such as it is. But 
all these for good or evil are acts of choice, and my moral 
character, such as I now find it to be, has not been formed 
independently of myself 

Were Mr Owen's proposition true, such a thing as duty 
would be obviously impossible, and yet he affirms that his sys- 
tem has its duties. I am not obliged to reconcile his incon- 
sistencies ; but of this I am certain, that no man who reads 
the following two propositions can possibly believe them both. 
The one is — *' Man's whole character, physical, mental, and 
moral, is formed independently of himself." The other is — 
'' That it is man's highest dutt/ to himself and his fellow men 
to acquire an accurate knowledge of those circumstances which 
produce evil to the human race, and of those which produce 
good ; to exert all his poivers to remove the former from so- 
ciety, and create around it the latter only.'' These two state- 
ments are flatly contradictory. The words duty, good, evil. 



60 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

powers, create, are clearly without meaning if a man's whole 
character is formed independently of himself. Mr Owen does 
not address himself to some superior beings to exert their 
powers, to create good influences, to avert those which are 
evil — he does not speak to such of duty, but to man, of whom 
he yet says that his whole character is formed independently 
of himself. Surely he has succeeded at least in refuting him- 
self, and we need here to adduce no farther argument. 

On another proposition of Mr Owen, I have only a single 
remark to make, and would not have adverted to it at all, 
save to notice the important admission it contains. The pro- 
position is — " That such superior principles or feelings can 
never be given to man under those institutions of society 
which have been founded on the mistaken supposition that 
man forms his feelings and convictions by his ivill, and is 
therefore responsible for them." The principle here implied 
and asserted is, that what results from human volition is mat- 
ter of responsibility. He admits that men would be respon- 
sible for their feelings and convictions were they formed by 
the will. To acts of the will, then, on Mr Owen's own show- 
ing, responsibility attaches, and hence, whatsoever we can 
prove that a man does willingly, we have him on our side 
when we assert that he does it responsibly. So far, then, 
as he is concerned, the question of responsibility may be con- 
sidered as settled, for moral science asserts nothing more than 
that responsibility attaches to the acts of the will, 

I have farther to notice three brief assertions which he 
makes in that section of his book entitled, *' On the irrespon- 
sibility of man." They are as follows : — " No one shall be 
responsible for his physical, intellectual, or moral organiza- 
tion. No one shall be responsible for the sensations made on 
his organization by external circumstances. No one shall be 
responsible for the feelings and convictions within him, and 
which are to him the truth while they continue." Fully to 
meet these assertions it would be necessary for us to enter 
upon the consideration of the doctrine of original sin or de- 
pravity. This course I shall not adopt, because it would be 
entirely out of place in a course of lectures on the Evidences. 
I content myself wdth observing, that no one, so far as I know, 
asserts the responsibility of man for his organization. Orga- 



man's responsibility. 61 

nization is the mere collocation of matter, and not a subject of 
moral judgment. 

We may merely notice it as a matter of fact, that man is 
responsible in these respects. If responsibility can in any 
case be proved by the fact of punishment, it is certain that, in 
this world at least, there is nothing for which man is so se- 
verely punished as his physical organisation. He who inherits 
a diseased and sickly constitution, has in himself, and as re- 
sulting from this cause, the elements of remediless misery — is 
subjected to a punishment which can be capable of little al- 
leviation. This is a fact which is indisputable as such, nor is 
it possible to entertain any doubt as to its cause, which is to 
be found in the physical organisation for which Mr Owen says 
no man shall be responsible. His imperative shall, unhappily 
cannot abolish the natural fact. The question is a curious 
one, and not unimportant^ — whether any moral ground can be 
discovered for the existence of such a fact ? Our natural sense 
teaches us that wherever there is punishment there must have 
been criminality, and from the fact that men are severely 
punished as the result of a diseased physical constitution, we 
are constrained to conclude that in some w^ay there must be cri- 
minality in it. But nature returns no answer to our questioning 
when we enquire why this should be ? She merely proclaims it 
as a fact, plainly and unequivocally written in her actings, 
not only in the transmission of diseases from parent to child, 
but in the laws of Providence throughout all departments, and 
under every form of society. She teaches us that men are so 
connected one with another, that the crimes of one injuriously 
affect many. She gives us no explanation of the fact. The 
Bible and the Bible alone does ; and here, as elsewhere, its 
declarations of principle are in entire harmony with the facts 
of history, and the results of experience. The Bible tells us 
of a federation embracing all mankind, of the transgression 
of a law by the head of it, and of a punishment exigible 
for that transgression upon every man. In entire accord- 
ance with this, experience shows us that there is punish- 
ment, and consequently responsibility, where there has been 
no personal transgression. The inhabitants of a country 
suffer by the misdeeds of its rulers. The inhabitants of a 
world, the Bible tells us, suffer by the misdeeds of the common 



62 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

father and representative of them all. What may be the 
moral basis of such a constitution of things — by what law of 
equity it may be regulated, it is not given to us fully to know, 
nor can I pause at present even partially to vindicate it. I 
must be content with affirming the negative of Mr Owen's 
proposition, and with resting my affirmation on the universal 
experience of men. 

What is true of the physical organization will be foundat least 
equally true of the intellectual and moral. The punishments 
which in the constitution of nature are visited upon men do 
not await the slow progress of their moral and intellectual de- 
velopment. They are uniform in their operation, whatever 
may be the state of our information and moral darkness. He 
who, in ignorance of its nature, puts his hand into the fire, 
will not less surely be burned than if his information had been 
correct and full. The laws of nature have no exception even 
in favour of the infirmities of idiocy. It is right to say, how- 
ever, that men are not punished because they are ignorant, 
but although they are ignorant. 

On this second statement I would not here assert even that man 
is responsible for the sensations made on his organization. But 
on Mr Owen's own shewing, whenever these include the ope- 
ration of the vrill, as, for instance, in the conscious indulgence 
of them, he is responsible. I felt somewhat surprised at first 
sight that Mr Owen had not possessed the boldness to assert 
what is really involved in his principles, that man is not re- 
sponsible for his actions any more than for his feelings and 
convictions. Perhaps he had not the courage so to outrage 
the common sense and universal instincts of men. But the 
proposition is not true, even in the restricted form in which 
he puts it. This, I trust, I have already proved. And, in- 
deed, it is abundantly notorious, in point of fact, that man is 
responsible for his feelings and convictions, and this not only 
in so far pertains to their formation and culture, but for the 
entertainment of them. They may appear to be the truth at 
the time, but truth will not consent to accommodate itself to 
his convictions. A man may be convinced that the vessel in 
which he has sailed from port is quite sea- worthy, but, if it be 
not true in itself, the ship will sink, and he will perish, not- 
withstanding of his convictions. That is, he will as certainly 



man's responsibility. 63 

be punished for entertaining a false conviction as for acting 
contrary to a true one. 

I shall read another proposition of Mr Owen, which caused 
me considerable surprise. It occurs in the exposition of his 
social system, and occurs in the form of one of its laws : " x\s 
soon as the members of these communities shall have been 
educated from infancy in a knowledge of the laws of their na- 
ture ; trained to act in obedience to them ; and surrounded by 
circumstances all in unison with them ; there shall be no in- 
dividual punishment or reward." This law contains an im- 
plied contradiction of Mr Owen's whole theory of responsi- 
bility. If I understand aright his averments in the preceding 
portion of his Book, they amount substantially to this : That 
men are entirely and inevitably the creatures of circumstances ; 
that their constitution has not hitherto been rightly understood ; 
that the vices and crimes which have prevailed among them 
have been directly and inevitably caused by the mal-arrange- 
ments of society ; that therefore they are to be regarded not 
as blame-worthy but simply unfortunate ; and that conse- 
quently no punishment should be attached to their transgres- 
sions. Now, however, he tells us that punishment shall only 
cease when men have grown up under the social system, and 
shall have fully profited by all its lessons. That is to say, 
he finds them objects of punishment and reward, though they 
are not responsible ; and that, too, when they have been placed 
under a vicious system, which kept them in ignorance and fos- 
tered crime, but they shall be punishable and rewardable no 
longer when their moral and intellectual faculties have been 
cultivated to the utmost in the new moral world ! In other 
words responsibility shall cease at the very point at which, on 
his own shewing, it should commence! Or, it is possible he 
may entertain such confidence in his social system, as to believe 
that under it men shall act in such a way as to annihilate 
moral pravity, and hence supersede the necessity of punish- 
ment. If so, v/hatever v/e may think of the merits of his 
social system, or of the likelihood of its producing such bene- 
ficent results, we can recognise no statement different from 
what all moralists would agree with him in making. For to 
what does it amount ? It is merely to say that when there is 
no sin there shall be no punishment — that when men become 



64: EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

perfect all penalties shall be superseded. The Bible itself 
sajs, '* The law is not made for a righteous man but for the 
lawless and disobedient/' But suppose the social system not 
effective in perfecting humanity, what then? Must punish- 
ments and rewards still continue ? Moreover, even the social 
system has its laws. Are they to be a mere hrutum fulmen ? 
What is to be done with the man who violates them ? 

I have now exhausted what I think it necessary to say on 
this book, so far as it relates to my subject. I trust I have 
been enabled to deal with it in a spirit of candour. I have 
endeavoured, at least, with all patience and attention, to con- 
sider the statements Mr Owen makes, and have only rejected 
them as untrue, because I bave proved them to be so. The sub- 
ject is one of vast importance, and in some of its bearings most 
complex and difficult. Is it too much if I ask you to study it 
with the spirit of a becoming reverence for truth, a humility 
that will listen attentively to its dictates, and a patience 
which, instead of attempting to overleap, will resignedly wait 
the solution of difficulties at present beyond our ken. 



( 65 ) 



LECTURE IV. 

OX THE CHAEACTEE OE GOD, 

AS DELIXEAIED IX THE BIBLE : 



COMPARED WITH THE VIEWS OF THE DIYINE NATURE ENTERTAINED 

BY THE MOST LEARNED PHILOSOPHERS OE ANCIENT AND 

MODERN TIMES. 

BY THE REV. WILLIAM Vv^LSOX 



There is a distinction between what a man may and ought 
to know, and what he actually does know. "Were we to esti- 
mate the possibilities of human attainment by what men 
have really acquired, we would undervalue their capacity, 
and diminish their responsibility. This is peculiarly true 
when we consider what men might have known, and ought to 
have ascertained, concerning God, and the actual knowledge of 
Him possessed by them. We speak thus of the bulk of 
mankind, who have manifested a deplorable ignorance both 
of the being and character of the true God — an ignorance not 
arising from incapacity, nor from want of adequate informa- 
tion, but because they did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge. The Scriptures assert that men are not neces- 
sarily ignorant of God ; on the contrary, they tell us that " the 
invisible things of him from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and Godhead." And on this assertion of 
the capacity of men to know God the scriptures rest their 
responsibility — their inexcusableness in not ii^owing him. 
xo. V, V 



66 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITT. 

It is important to notice this scriptui'Lil statement, because 
it will bo found correctly to indicate the possibilities of 
human knowledge concerning the divine being, as derived 
from the rescources of Nature. It expresses the amount of 
knowledge which has actually been reached by the most gifted 
and the best cultivated minds. That there is a God — that he is 
one essence — that he is powerful, and that this power is 
eternal, that is, a power preceding all others — independent of 
them — and originating them. This the most distinguished 
of the philosophers have conjectured, believed, or known. Rut 
this exhausts their knowledge, unless we choose to add to the 
amount a belief in the divine wisdom. This, indeed, is 
comprehended in their idea of power. For what was under- 
stood of the divin3 v,isdom, w'as merely power intelligently 
directed. 

It is surely not too much to say that the child now under- 
stands more of God than the greatest philosophers of old. 
Christianity has raised the meanest understanding to a loftier 
elevation than was reached or imagined in the sublimest 
thoughts of unaided nature. He who believes and knows the 
answer to the question in the Catechism of the Westminster 
Assembly, What is God — who understands that he is a spirit, 
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, 
power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth, stands on a 
higher level in the very highest department of human know- 
ledge, than the most subtle and soaring intellects of ancient 
times could reach. The sources of this higher knowledge are 
in the Bible ; we look for them elsewhere in vain. The 
amount of that knowledge which the Bible gives us of God, is 
well expressed in the following summary : — 

*' There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite 
in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without 
body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incom- 
prehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most 
absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his 
own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory ; 
most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in 
goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin ; 
the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal 
most just and terrible in his judgments ; hating all sin, aid 



CHARACTER OF GOD. C7 

who will by no means clear the guilty. God hath all life, 
glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone 
in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any 
creatures which he hath made, not deriving any glory from 
them, but only manifesting his own glory, in, by, unto, and 
upon them : he is the alone fountain of alj being, of whom, 
through whom, and to whom, are all things ; and hath most 
sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or 
upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth. In his sight all 
things are open and m^anifest ; his know^ledge is infinite, 
infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing 
is to him contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all his 
counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands." — Con^ 
fession of Faith, c. ii. 

Let us take a brief survey of the extent of the information 
thus communicated to us. 

1. God is one. The scripture statements on this fact are 
very frequent, scattered throughout the whole Bible, unmis- 
takably explicit, and expressed in various ways, *' I, even 
I, am he, and there is no God with me. Before me there 
was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. The 
Lord he is God, and there is none else beside him. Hear, O 
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.'' But it is needless to 
multiply citations. It is of more importance that we should 
notice the value of the information thus communicated. It is 
one of the most precious facts with which men have been 
made acquainted, and one which has been proved directly and 
most materially to affect their whole character and history. 
It is a fact which, in so far as it has obtained any prevalent 
belief among men, is revealed in the Scriptures. For, 
wherever the Bible has been unknown, and wherever men 
have been unacquainted with the facts it communicates, there 
has been no prevalent influential belief, either in ancient or 
modern times, in the unity of God. The monotheistic 
nations are Christians or Mahomedans, and the latter have 
confessedly derived their doctrine of the divine unity from 
the Bible. Elsewhere the world is openly idolatrous — the 
progress of refinement and knowledge an ng its people only 
opening up the way for the introduction of a greater multi- 
tude of gods. The most barbarous of them scarcely rise to 



G3 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the conception of an order of being superior to their own. 
The most civilised and intelligent — the people of ancient 
Egypt, the Greeks, the Ronians, the Hindus — have deified all 
things ^nd persons which were eminent in power or splen- 
dour — the sun, moon, and stars — the elements and products of 
nature — the faculties and conquests of men — until their gods 
have become countless in number, as they are various in their 
attributes and character. The imagination is fatigued and 
perplexed in glancing over the catalogue of beings and things 
which men have consented to worship, and the character is 
degraded in the contemplation of their history and actings. 
There is no crime, no evil passion, which has not found a 
god to patronise it; and polytheism everywhere has shut men 
out from the noblest intellectual elevation, as well as fostered 
and matured the grossest moral delinquencies. 

It is true that there have been a few philosophers of nobler 
aim and higher reach of thought, who have risen to the 
conception of a divine unity. These have been very few, 
but sufficient to prove that the knowledge of one God is 
attainable. Zoroaster in the East, Socrates and Plato among 
the Greeks, Cicero among the Komans ; these names very 
nearly exhaust the list of philosophers who have believed or 
taught the unity of God. And even of these, it is doubtful 
whether they have not been indebted for a conception so 
sublime and so elevating to the Hebrew scriptures. Plato 
at least, who above all others, understood and embraced this 
idea, there is little reason to doubt, derived it either from the 
perusal of the Bible, or from conversation with those who had 
access to it. Apart from our knowledge of the fact that he 
travelled to the east, and gleaned what information he could 
gather among the people around the land of Judea, he mani- 
fests an obscure knowledge of the Hebrew prophesies, suffix 
eient to lead to the conclusion, that he had become acqua'nted 
more or less minutely with the sacred writers, and had drawn 
much of his singular and elevated knowledge from this 
fountain. 

But v/ere it even true that such philosophers as these had, 
by unaided observation and reflection, arrived at the know- 
ledge of the unity of God, we cannot fail to notice how 
singularly uninflurntial their views were. They were thrown 



CHARACTER OP GOD. 69 

out as happy conjectures rather than as ascertained facts — as 
what might be, and probably were true — not as fundamental 
and unquestionable. They were not habitually taught and 
inculcated. It is doubtful how far they were firmly believed. 
It is known that on the eve of his death Socrates ordered a 
sacrifice to be offered to the god of health. Xotwithstanding 
then of what some of the more eminent philosophers conjec- 
tured, or hoped, or believed, the world stands indebted to the 
Bible for the knowledge of the fact that there is one God ; and 
the incalculable difference between those who say to the wood, 
Awake, and to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach ; and 
those who have received and adopted the belief in the divine 
unity, is due not to the teaching of philosophy, but of that 
Bible which philosophers have presumed to despise. 

It has been objected to the information which the Bible 
gives regarding the oneness of God, that it is not uniform. 
That while, in many ways, the Bible conveys this idea, on the 
other hand it neutralizes its own statements, by bestowing at 
least the name of god upon other beings. This objection, so 
far as mere words are concerned, is well grounded. A 
plurality of gods is mentioned in scripture. Angels, kings, 
magistrates, Satan himself, are called gods : angels, because 
of the excellency of their nature — kings and magistrates, 
because of their authority — and Satan, from the dominion he 
exercises in and over the world. But the objection rests 
upon the mere application of the word, and has no foundation 
when we come to examine the meaning attached to it. The 
Bible seems to have anticipated the objection ; at all events 
it has removed the only basis on which it could rest. It 
defines the meaning of its own informations regarding the 
unity of God^ and the application of the term to other beings. 
Thus, 1 Cor. viii. 4, '' We know that an idol is nothing in 
the world, and that that there is none other God but one. 
For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or 
in earth (as there be gods many and lords many) ; but to us 
there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and 
we in him ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all 
things, and we by him." 

2. God is a S2Jirlt. By this statement we mean that he is 



i EVIDENCES OF CHRISTlANirY. 

invisible, without form, dimerisions, bodily parts, or passions, 
immaterial, incorruptible, immortal. The informations of 
scripture on this point are quite definite and clear. *' God is 
a spirit ; and they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth. No man hath seen God at any time. He 
is invisible, incorruptible, immortal ; dwelling in light, which 
no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can 
see. We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto 
gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." 

It is very doubtful whether any of the philosophers had a 
definite conception of God as a spirit. It is even doubtful 
whether such knowledge was possible for them. In the con- 
stitution of our own nature, consisting of soul and body, we 
have the elements of a knowledge by which we can grasp the 
conception of an animus mundi, or soul of the world. Bat 
transferring what we know of ourselves to the universe around 
us, we reach the idea not only of a material framework, but of 
a soul by which it is animated, and by which its motions are 
regulated. This is very nearly the philosophic notion of the 
spirituality of God. He was the soul, the animating motive 
principle of the universe. The philosophers had no concep- 
tion of God as a distinct being, having an eternal existence 
in himself, and originating, by the fiat of his will, all other 
existences. They were able to rise above the grosser con- 
ceptions of materialism, but not to a living creative being, 
over all as well as in all. Even had their views been 
universally adopted and believed, the worshippers of God 
could never have been subjected by them to those influences 
which, above all others, are important for elevating and 
purifying the character. The tendency of human nature is 
to reduce worship to an external formula ; and the correction 
of this tendency is only to be found in the doctrine of God's 
spirituality. The sacrifices and services of heathenism could 
never change the character of its votaries. The spiritual 
worship of a spiritual God both indicates the existence, and 
promotes the perfection of this change. The vitality of 
religion is in the service of the heart. .But such service pre- 
supposes the existence of a God who is a spirit. Destitute of 
this knowledge, the philosophers were men of licencious lives. 



CHAHACTER OF GOD. 71 

and their worship of God Avas either a mere intellectul con- 
templation or a bodily service, utterly uniniluential in the 
regulation of the conduct. 

It has been also objected that the informations of scrijpture 
on the spirituality of God are neither uniform nor consistent. 
The Bible speaks of God as having bodily parts and passions. 
We read of the eyes of the Lord being in every place ; of his 
ears being open to the cry of hia people ; of his hands being 
stretched forth to save them ; of his feet, under which a,ll 
thitfgs are placed; of his bowels as moved with compassion. 
All these, it is plain, from the uses to which they are applied, 
and the connection in which they stand, are merely figures of 
speech. The human parts and properties ascribed to God are 
emblems, in the use of which the scriptures accommodate 
themselves to our ordinary habits of thought, and so to our 
easy apprehension. Thus, it is evident, the eyes of God is an 
emblem, designed to indicate his minute and perfect know- 
ledge of all things. His ears, to indicate that every utterance 
is heard by him. His face, the manifestation of his character 
and purposes to men. His hands, the power he possesses, and 
the ceaseless operation by which he governs the universe. 
His feet, the relation in which all things stand to him, as sub- 
jected to his control. His bowels, the attribute of mercy and 
compassion. It is only a perverse ingenuity by which these 
emblems can be translated into facts. They are not of such a 
nature as to perplex the understanding of the simple, nor to 
destroy their conceptions of God as a most pure Spirit. 

I have seen a publication, which is one of the manifold ex- 
pressions of modern infidelity, in which some of these emblems 
were pictorially represented, and the God of the Christian 
exhibited as a more monstrous idol than is to be found even 
in the range of the Hindu mythology. The picture combined 
a representation of God as described in two separate passages 
of scripture, the one in the prophecy of Habakkuk, and the 
other in the eighteenth Psalm ; '' He had horns coming out of 
his hand. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire 
out of his mouth devoured ; coals were kindled by it. He 
rode upon a cherub, and did fly ; he did fly upon the wings of 
the w^ind.'' No doubt a sufficiently monstrous and revolting 
picture could be formed by a literal rendering of these words ; 



72 ETIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITT. 

"but the question is, Would such a picture represent the God 
of the Bible ? Must all language be literal ? ^ there to be 
no allowance for the pictorial ? Must there be no emblem to 
aid us in the apprehension of the spiritual ? He who has 
read the Bible, and acquired any knowledge of its itsus lo- 
quendi, its modes of representing truth, will be at no loss 
either to know that these expressions are figurative, or to 
understand what the figures really indicate. The hand of 
God, we have already said, indicates the possession and 
exercise of power. Horn is also an emblem of power. To 
say of God that he had horns coming out of his hand, 
indicates that he was making very manifest and terrible 
exercise of his power. The prophetical statements of the 
context will make it sufficiently evident, how, and on what 
occasion, God made his power felt and known. The passage 
from the eighteenth Psalm is not so obvious in its meaniug 
and application ; but it contains within itself a refutation of 
the infidel, and grossly material conception of the objection. 
The Psalmist speaks of the ivings of the wind. Surely no one 
supposes that the wind is literally furnished with wings. Tt 
is said to be so, poetically, to indicate the swiftness of its 
course. Neither is it legitimate to say that, because the nos- 
trils of God are spoken of, he has bodily parts like a man. 
When it is said that there went up a smoke out of his nos- 
trils, it is designed to indicate to us that he is exercising 
judgment which is of a dark and mysterious character — judg- 
ment not inflicted through human instrumentality, but, as it 
were, breathed upon its victim, directly by God. When it is 
said that fire out of his mouth devoured, it is designed to in- 
dicate that the judgment was of a consuming character, ex- 
pressed in a sentence of condemnation, the execution of which 
was swift and destructive. Coals are kindled by it ; that is, 
the judgment took effect — the fire laid hold of and consumed 
its appropriate object. He rode upon a cherub ; that is, the 
judgment did not tarry, nor operate by slow degrees — it was 
as sudden and swift as it was terrible and consuming. Such, I 
apprehend, is the meaning of the emblems employed. Those 
who will take the trouble carefully to study the whole struc- 
ture and statements of the Psalm, will perceive that it contains 
an epitomized history of the life, sufferings, death, exaltation, 



CHARACTER OP GOD. 73 

and victory of Jesus Christ ; and, in this view, nothing can be 
more sublime, or awful and affecting, than the imagery in 
which the act of the Father, in bruising and putting to grief 
his Son, is here pourtrayed. This, however, I only notice in- 
cidentally. It does not lie within my province, at present, 
minutely to interpret, and fully to investigate, particular por- 
tions of scripture. 

The statements we have now made apply, to some extent, 
to the representations contained in scripture regarding the 
passions of the Divine Mind, such as jealousy, anger, fury, re- 
venge. They are certainly not in the strictest sense figures 
of speech. In the plainest and most naked terms God is de- 
scribed as a jealous God, and such a feeling seems essential to 
our conception of His character as invested with the attributes 
of holiness and of love. We would certainly misinterpret the 
language were we to prosecute to its v^hole extent the analogy 
between the human feeling of jealousy and that which charac- 
terises God. But he who is holy and he who loves must be 
jealous in some sense ; that is, must holily watch over the 
purity of the being whom he loves, and guard him against pol- 
lution. Anger and revenge are in man very often mean, ma- 
lignant passions. They are not so always — they are never so 
in God. Moral indignation is a necessary attendant upon 
holiness. 

I have not seen these deistical objections more judiciously 
and discriminatingly handled than by Andrew Fuller, from 
whose works I feel constrained to offer the following quota- 
tion : — ''Lord Shaftesbury, not contented with overlooking, 
attempts to satirize the scripture representations of the Divine 
character. ' One would think,' he says, * it were easy to un- 
derstand that provocation and offence, anger, revenge, jea- 
lousy in point of honour or power, love of fame, glory, and the 
like, belong only to limited beings, and are necessarily excluded 
a Being which is perfect and universal.' That many things 
are attributed to the Divine Being, in a figurative style, 
speaking merely after the m^anner of m.en, and that they are 
so understood by Christians, Lord Shaftesbury must have well 
known. We do not think it lawful, however, so to explain 
away these expressions as to consider the Great Supreme as 
being incapable of being offended with sin and sinners, as des- 



74 EVIDEXCES OF CHRISTI AXITY. 

titute of pleasure or displeasure, or as unconcerned about his 
own glory, the exercise of which involves the general good of 
the universe. A being of this description would be neither 
loved nor feared, but would become the object of universal 
contempt. 

'' It is no part of the imperfection of our nature that we are 
susceptible of provocation and offence, of anger, of jealousy, 
and of a just regard to our own honour. Lord Shaftesbury 
himself would have ridiculed the man, and still more the ma- 
gistrate, that should have been incapable of these properties 
on certain occasions. They are planted in our nature by the 
divine being, and are adapted to answer valuable purposes. 
If they be perverted and abused to sordid ends, which is too 
frequently the case, this does not alter their nature nor lessen 
their utility. What would Lord Shaftesbury have thought 
of a magistrate who would have witnessed a train of assassin- 
ations and murders without being in the least offended at 
them, or angry with the perpetrators, or inclined to take ven- 
geance on them for the public good ? What would he think 
of a British House of Commons which should exercise no jea- 
lousy over the encroachments of a minister, or of a king of 
Great Britain who should suffer, with perfect indifference, his 
just authority to be contemned ? 

" But we are limited beings, and are, therefore, in danger 
of having our just rights invaded. True, and though God be 
unlimited, and so in no danger of being deprived of his essen- 
tial glory, yet he may lose his just authority in the esteem of 
creatures ; and were this to take place universally, the whole 
creation would be a scene of anarchy and misery. But we 
understand Lord Shaftesbury. He wishes to compliment his 
Maker out of all his moral excellencies. He has no objection 
to a God provided he be one after his own heart, one who 
shall pay no such regard to human affairs as to call men to 
account for their ungodly deeds." 

3. God is self- existent, the fountain of all heing^ eternal, 
infinite, unchangeable. Here the information of scripture do 
not differ essentially from the beliefs of the most intelligent 
and wise philosophers. The difference lies in the extent and 
definiteness of the statements contained in scripture. In these 
respects the difference is immense. Had we been left to 



CHARACTER OF GOD. 75 

gather our views of these attributes of the divine nature from 
what philosophers have told us, we would have been very much 
in the dark. It is difficult to determine whether all of them 
did not believe in the eternity of a material universe — whether 
any of them really apprehended and fully believed that God 
was self-existent and eternal. But into these questions we do 
not choose to enter. Let it be granted that in these respects 
God was fully understood and known, they constitute but 
a small and comparatively uninfluential portion of that know- 
ledge which the scriptures communicate concerning God. 

4. God is infinite in hioivledge. " Known unto God are 
all his works from the beginning. The eyes of the Lord are 
in every place, beholding the evil and the good. He is ac- 
quainted with all our ways ; there is not a word on our tongue 
but he knoweth it altogether, and he understandeth our 
thoughts afar of.'^ Such are a few of the expressions em- 
ployed to indicate the minuteness and extent of the divine 
knowledge. All events which occur in the universe were pre- 
sent to his mind from eternity. Xothing is to him unex- 
pected — nothing uncertain. " Not a sparrow can fall to the 
ground without his knowledge ; yea, even the hairs of our head 
are all numbered." He knows and regulates the motions of 
suns and systems — determines the rise and. fall of empires — 
is acquainted with every event in our personal history — with 
every desire we have cherished — -with every word we speak — 
he clothes the grass of the field — and has peopled the earth 
with countless multitudes of organized beings, so minute as to 
be perceptible by us only through the wonderful power of the 
microscope — yet God creates, forms, sustains them — has en- 
dowed them with their several functions, and regulates their 
every movement. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us, it 
is high, we cannot attain to it. 

Philosophers never attained to such knowledge of Go.\ 
They had no conception either of the infinite extent, or th^ 
infinite minuteness of the divine knowledge. It is true they 
believed God to be possessed of this attribute. But with them 
his knowledge meant little more than intelligence — the power 
of knowing, not the actual possession of it. Nor need we 
wonder at this. For, however inevitable to reason the infer- 
ence may appear, that a God who is the author and upholder 



76 EVIDEXOES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of all being, must be thoroughly acquainted with it, it is not an 
inference which men are likely to draw. Practically, even among 
ourselves, and with the information of scripture sounding in 
their ears, men ivill not believe it. The first act of sinful human- 
ity was to hide itself from the presence of the Lord. The act was 
natural, and reason yet vainly endeavours to persuade men 
that the eye of God is always upon them. Philosophers 
were as little likely as other men to prosecute such a branch 
of inquiry — to follow in this direction their own principles of 
belief, and to land themselves in the conclusion that nothing 
could be hid from God. Yet to reason it is true, whose dic- 
tates are here in perfect harmony with the declarations of 
scripture. It is involved in the very conception of an intel- 
ligent creator and ruler. He must know at all times, in all 
modes, that which he has formed and endowed with its pro- 
perties — that which he sustains and regulates. In him we 
live and move and have our being. 

5. God is infinite in wisdom and power. Philosophers 
knew and believed this, but not to the extent in which the 
Bible reveals it. It is a peculiar glory of the Bible, that it 
not only verifies and confirms, but amplifies and enlarges, all 
that we could learn of God from his works ; while, in addi- 
tion, it communicates much information regarding him which 
we could in no other vray have attained. 

6. Let us now look to what have been called the moral at- 
tributes of God. Here all is revelation. Here philosophy is 
in the last degree in the dark. It could conceive of a God 
powerfu.1 and intelligent — but the moral darkness of our na- 
ture obscured its contemplation of his moral perfection. Here 
the informations of scripture are eminently supernatural. In 
this respect God was to the philosopher altogether unknown. 

(1.) He had no conception of a God infinite in holiness — 
the absolute, unchangeable abhorrence of every thing that was 
evil which the Scriptures ascribe to God. Yet, in the Bible, this is 
the most prominent attribute of Jehovah. In the vision which 
the prophet of old saAv, He is represented as sitting upon a 
throne high and lifted up, and the seraphim that are above it 
veil their faces and feet with their wings, and cry one to an- 
other, Holy, holy^ holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth 
is full of his glory. Even thus does God appear to the inha- 



CHARACTER OF GOD. ,' / 

bitants of heaven. The glory which they behold is the glory 
of his holiness. It is for this reason they worship with veiled 
faces. Even thus is God delineated everywhere in the pages 
of the Bible, as one who cannot look upon sin — before v/hoiu 
the heavens are not clean — who chargeth even his angels with 
folly. The revelation of him to the soul fills it with self- 
abasement. " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, 
but now mine eyes see thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and re- 
pent in dust and ashes." There is nothing in philosophy 
which so reveals God. 

But is the revelation true ? Is God's holiness not a fable ? 
All nature attests its truth. The history of our race bears 
most emphatic and unwilling testimony to it. The whole crea- 
tion groaneth and travaileth in pain because of sin, and in its 
sore distresses proclaims the holiness of God. The constitu- 
tion of our nature bears witness to it. All misery is the 
offspring of sin. Just as certainly as man sins, does he create 
misery for himself; and his emancipation into peace and glad- 
ness lies only in the way of holiness. God has thus engraven 
the record of his holiness — his abhorrence of sin — upon the 
page of all history, and in the principles upon which he has 
constructed our nature, and according to which he conducts 
the government of the world. 

(2.) The philosopher had no adequate conception of the 
justice of God — of God as a lawgiver, under whose govern- 
ment we live, to whom we must render an account of the deeds 
done in the body, and who will surely requite iniquity. They 
had some dim perception of a future state of rewards and 
punishments ; but their representations of it are such as to 
induce the belief that punishments were only reserved for the 
most atrocious criminals. Their beliefs regarding it exerted 
but little influence over their lives : most of them were noto- 
riously wicked and profligate. Socrates stands out as the 
single exception, and even he was an idolater. 

(3.) Their views were scarcely, if at all, m.ore con:prehen- 
sive regarding the goodness and faithfulness of God. In the 
Bible he is revealed as a God who cannot lie. He has re- 
corded it as his name and memorial unto ail generations : 
" The Lord, the Lord merciiul and gracious, slow to anger, 
abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, and trans- 



73 EYIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

gression, and sin/' It was impossible that unaided reason 
should so apprehend God ; for just in so far as men magnified 
his justice must they have detracted from his mercy; and so 
far as they believed him good must they have thought him 
deficient in justice. They did not perceive how mercy and 
truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other. 
They never beheld the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
The great mystery of godliness was never unveiled to them, 
and hence the whole moral character of God was to them an 
inexplicable enigma. It was to them an entire blank ; and 
the only features of the divine character which bring him into 
direct and influential contact with men, were by them unob- 
served and unknown. Their knowledge of God, then, such as it 
was, was nothing more than an interesting speculation, sublime 
and elevating because of the magnitude of its object, but des- 
titute of that transforming, quickening power, which is the 
glory of revelation. 

It is impossible to institute anything like a just comparison 
between the character of God as revealed in the Bible, and the 
conceptions of Him formed by modern infidel philosophers. 
For while these men confessedly repudiated the Bible, they 
could not denude themselves of all the benefits it had con- 
ferred—they could not make themselves utterly ignorant of 
the truths it had communicated to the w^orld. We cannot, 
therefore, ascertain, from their opinions, how much they had 
learned of God from His works, and how much from His 
Word. Yet it is very instructive, as serving to illustrate and 
confirm what we have stated of the ignorance of the ancient 
philosophers regarding the moral character of God, to notice, 
that modern Deism does not seem to have made any advances 
in this direction. It, too, has in great measure denuded God 
of his moral attributes. We read in the works of Deists of a 
God Almighty, the supreme intelligence. I do not remember 
that He is characterized any where as the holy and just God. 
Many of them, indeed, expressly denied his possession of a 
moral character. 

Bolingbroke reduces all the Divine attributes to wisdom and 
power, and denies that wisdom is a moral attribute. He says : 
*' We cannot ascribe goodness and justice to God, according to 
our ideas of them, nor argue with any certainty about them ; 



CHARACTER OF GOD. 79 

and it is absurd to deduce moral obligations from the moral 
attributes of God, or to pretend to imitate him in these attri- 
butes." There is no greater absurdity here, we would answer, 
than to ascribe power to God ; for it will be found that our 
conceptions of power are possible to us only because we are 
ourselves conscious of exercising it. There is nothing in the 
operations of nature which directly reveal to us more than a 
mere sequence of events. That there is power in a cause to 
produce its effect, is a deduction from our own consciousness of 
exercising it, in order to the production of the effect we desire. 
It is as reasonable, then, in us to conclude that God is 
just, as that He is powerful — to conclude that He is holy, as 
that He is wi?e. 

David Hume, in so far as he could be said to believe in a 
God at all, held that it was unreasonable to ascribe to Him the 
attributes of wisdom and goodness. 

Voltaire affirms nothing regarding the moral character of 
God, but admits the existence of a supreme, eternal, incompre- 
hensible intelligence. 

Paine ascribes to God the attributes of wisdom and power, 
but says little, save in the way of ridicule of His moral per- 
fections. 

It ought to be noticed, moreover, that inadequate and im- 
perfect as the conceptions of philosophers have been of the 
character of God, these were rendered yet farther nugatory 
and inoperative by the views they entertained of His govern- 
ment. He appeared to them very much in the character sim- 
ply of a first cause, removed from the business and the affairs 
of men, into the obscure depths of a past eternity — not as a 
God present in every place, and upholding all things by the 
word of his power. He had, in this view, put forth his power 
and exercised his intelligence in creation, and in impressing 
certain laws upon his works ; but with the present government 
of the world, he had practically very little, if anything, to do. 
They were mainly ignorant of the fact of God's government, 
of the extent, and of the object of it. They did not perceive 
that by him all things consist. They did not believe that the 
birds of the air and the grass of the field were objects of his 
providential care. They were utterly ignorant of the grand 



so EVIDENCES or CHRlSTIAXirY. 

design which it is the object of creation to subserve. These 
things are to be learned only in the Bible. 

Such then, though briefly and imperfectly stated, are the 
views of philosophers and of the Bible respectively, regarding 
the nature and character of God. In so far as the knowledge of 
the highest philosophers extends, their views coincide with those 
stated in the Bible. As a whole, it is true, the information 
of each is not a subject of comparison but of contrast. The 
knowledge of the philosophers is but a drop in the great ocean 
of truth. "What they had ascertained they knew imperfec:ly, 
and their beliefs were almost entirely inoperative, and tliere 
was much which they never attempted or desired to discover. 
God, as delineated in the Bible, is not, therefore, the God of 
philosophers. To the latter he is an incomprehensible intelli- 
gence ; and when we come to sum up their views of his character, 
we recognise how true to nature and to history is the state- 
ment of the apostle Paul. He visited Athens, the seat of 
philosophy and refinement, and found the city wholly given 
to idolatry. He came into collision with the philosophers in 
the centre and seat of their authority. He perceived a practical 
developement of the lessons both of the common and the higher 
philosophy. The idolatry, everywhere prevalent, expressed 
the common popular belief; the sublimest truths of the nobler 
philosophy of Plato had also found their not inappropriate 
expression, in an altar with this inscription, To the unhnoivn 
God. The purpose of his mission there and elsewhere — the 
design of the Bible — is expressed by him in these few and 
simple words : '^ Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him 
declare I unto you.'' The God of the philosopher was, prac- 
tically, an unknown God. This God the Bible reveals. Its 
views of those attributes of the Divine character which were 
known to philosophers, are full, definite, and comprehensive. 
Theirs were vague and incomplete. The Bible information 
embraces an incalulably wider range, and reveals to us the 
moral attributes of God. 

The first question which occurs, when we have taken this 
comparative view is, where did the writers of the Bible get 
their knowledge ? The fact of its superiority in extent and 



CHARACTER OF GOD. 81 

kind over that of all other writers is unquestionable. How did 
they acquire it ? Their own answer to the question is suffici- 
ently simple and explicit. They tell us they got their infor- 
mation from God himself. Thej do not pretend to any labo- 
rious investigation of the mysteries of nature. They say God 
told them who and what he was. 

Is this statement of theirs credible ? Our answer unhesi- 
tatingly is, yes ; for how otherwise could they have got the 
information ? They certainly had no better opportunities 
than the ancient philosophers possessed of prosecuting their 
studies. How could they have pushed them to an extent so 
greatly beyond what other men have been able to reach ? 
Are we to conclude that the writers of the Bible were men of 
such incomparable genius, that the lefty mind even of Plato 
is dwarfed when placed beside them ? They have discovered 
and declared, and made the common property of the world, 
facts and principles in the highest and most recondite of all 
sciences, which were unknown to all other men. They did 
did not strike out into a new field of inquiry which other men 
had never laboured in. Their investigations lie in the same 
province with those of the noblest minds of our race. But 
what a contrast in their attainmxents. The most eminent 
philosophers had stris^en to know God, and the result of their 
labours was expressed in the inscription on the altar at Athens, 
that is, they came to know, that there was an unknown God. 
The writers of the Bible declare him. They speak of him as 
those who knew him. There is a definite clearness and 
assurance in their statements which indicate the possession of 
a thorough knowledge of their theme. Whence this contrast ? 
If it was genius that gave birth to such noble conceptions, and 
was able to mould them into such definite form, then the 
writers of the Bible are iricomparably the greatest men tho 
world ever saw. They appear as a species of demi-gods 
even among the most eminent of the race. And if we deny 
that the Bible is a revelation, vve seem at least to be shut up 
to the conclusion, that thev have given to the world incal- 
culably the highest products of genius, and consequently that 
their writings are better worth a careful and reverend study 
than all the books in the world besides. For, if we seek tho 
elevation of our own character, the growth of our own intelli- 
gence, how otherwise can we successfully attain these objects^ 

NO. VI. 



82 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

than bj making ourselves familiar with the highest thoughts 
of the highest minds? The Bible, even in this view, is the 
most venerable of all books — the most worthy of perusal — 
the fountain of highest v,'isdom. 

But the informations of the Bible are not the result of 
incomparable genius. Such knowledge is too high — even 
genius could not have attained it. It may carry a man farther 
than others in certain enquiries. It could not generate such 
conceptions of God as we find in the Bible. They are not 
natural. They do not lie in the line of human thoughts and 
aspirations. This is eminently true of the revelation of 
God's holiness. This, at least, is supernatural. While we 
might be wrong in inferring what man could do, from what 
he has done, we are safe in concluding that this was for him 
an impossible achievement. It is not only above and beyond 
what any man has done, but it is a truth which lies beyond 
the domain of his contemplations. 

But, instead of speculating on the possibilities of human 
attainment, let us rather ask again, are the writers of the 
Bible not credible when the}' tell us they obtained their infor- 
mation directly from God ? 

1. Let us notice, that they were not interested in making 
the statement. They proposed to themselves no advantage 
by it, nor did they reap any. Almost all of them were hated 
and persecuted because they made it. The God whom they 
revealed, was not a God suitable to the corrupt passions of 
humanity ; and his character presented nothing fitted to 
gratify them. To know him was to abase and humble all 
men, especially those who dwelt in the light of his holiness. 
The prophets were not elevated in their own esteem, and in 
that of others, to a place above their fellows. In the blaze of 
that light which is inaccessible, they felt that they were dark- 
ness. Their language, in the presence of that Majesty whom 
they declared, v^as, " Woe is me, for I am undone, because I 
am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people 
of unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord 
of hosts." They had not their mysteries, like the Pagan 
superstitions. The knowledge communicated to them became 
immediately the common property of all. They revealed a 
God proclaimed to all, accessible to all. They had no peculiar 
initiation to the schools in which the kuowled2:e of God was 



CHARACTER OF GOD. 83 

taught. Every Hebrew father was the instructor of his own chil- 
dren. It was not a system under which priestcraft could thrive. 
And now, under the Gospel dispensation, the Bible may be in 
the hands of every man, and all are invited to study it, and 
learn its lessons. Christianity has no priest^ no sacrifice on 
earth. It constitutes every believer a priest unto God. Priest- 
craft, carnal ambition, covetousness, thrives upon its corrup- 
tions. It renounces and condemns them all. 

2. The conception of such a character as the God of the 
Bible, not only indicates the sublimest genius, on the supposi- 
tion that the Bible is not a revelation, but it indicates yet 
more emphatically and conclusively, that the men who formed 
it were of very elevated character — men who at least had a 
reverence for, and a love of, holiness — men who valued truth, 
and regarded nothing as more hateful than a lie. This will 
become abundantly obvious, if we contrast the God of the 
Bible with the gods of Polytheism. Their gods are a human 
invention, and are such as men have conceived them to be. 
They are like the men who imagined them to exist, and reflect 
the character of their originators. What is the character 
these gods bear ? They are worshipped by acts of pollution 
and of cruelty. They are represented as themselves guilty of 
every crime which has debased and defiled humanity. Their 
worshippers believed them to be polluted by adulteries, false- 
hoods, and every enormity which has obtained a place in the 
calendar of human crime. Such were the gods which were 
suited to the conceptions of our fallen nature — which poets 
and philosophers imagined, believed, and worshipped — gods 
of their own likeness, and the patrons of their worst vices. 
The conditions of human nature seem to demand such a se- 
quence. Even Mahomet, notwithstanding the aid of revela- 
tion, conceived a heaven of sensual indulgence, suited to his 
own tastes. Gods which are the creation of the human mind, 
must be partakers of its infirmities and its vices. The loftiest 
conceptions of Divinity will be found to have emanated from 
men of a high elevation of character. The conception of a 
moral character in God, presupposes the existence of a moral 
character in man. The conception of such a character as that 
which the writers of the Bible give to God, presupposes the 
possession of a high moral character in themselves — a charac- 
ter higher, we will venture to say, than ever men possessed. 



84 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Here the principle holds good which was first stated hy John 
Foster, which has been expanded and adorned bj Hugh Miller, 
" No dramatist, whatever he may attempt, ever draws taller 
men than himself. As water in a bent tube rises to exactly 
the same height in the two limbs, so intellect in the character 
produced rises to but the level of the intellect of the producer. 
Milton's fiends, w^ith all their terrible strength and sublimity, 
are but duplicates of the Miltonic intellect, united to vitiated 
moral natures; nor does that august and adorable Being, who 
perhaps should not have been dramatically introduced into 
even the Paradise Lost, excel as an intelligence the too daring 
poet by whom he is exhibited." 

If the writers of the Bible were inventors of the God whom 
they describe, they must have been vile deceivers, and the 
conception of such a being by such men was doubly impossible. 
Such an invention w'ould attribute to them intellects alto- 
gether superhuman. God is by them not only described, he is 
dramaticallif introduced. This, on the principle just stated, 
implies, that they were men of as high intelligence as the God 
whom they dilineated ; that is to say, the Bible cannot be an 
invention, unless it be proved that the authors of it were gods. 
The intellectual impossibility is at least paralleled by the 
moral impossibility of men who were designing deceivers in- 
venting a God of such infinite excellence. To delineate such 
a character, was for such natures an impossibility. 

But if the writers of the Bible were not vile deceivers — if 
they were men who spoke the truth — then the Bible is a reve- 
lation from God himself, in which God speaks of himself, and 
informs us what He is. 

The value of the whole statement we have made in this 
lecture, as a matter of evidence, lies in this dilemma : Either 
the writers of the Bible tell us the truth, and so have given us 
a revelation, or they did not speak the truth, and have given 
us an invention. If they were liars, the invention of such a 
God was to them an impossibility. If they were not, it is God 
himself who speaks to us in the Bible. The God revealed in 
it is the one living and true God — our judge, law^giver, and 
king — the God with w^hom we have directly and immediately 
to do. It is our highest business to seek and know Him — oiT 
Aiighest honour to serve him. " This is life eternal, to know 
God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent." 



( 85 ) 



LECTURE V. 

ON THE CHAEACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 

BY THE EEV. JAMES R. M'GAYIN. 



It forms the highest office of religion to reveal the true 
God to men. Truth can study no nobler theme than the 
character and administration of him who is its Author ; virtue 
must discover in that character its highest model, as it listens 
in His voice to its law : and even revelation itself can realise 
no richer happiness than to unveil the glorious Godhead to the 
adoring contemplation and love of all intelligent beings. But 
whither can we turn to obtain a satisfactory acquaintance 
with Deity? The question is full of awful importance, and 
demands the earnest and enlightened search of every indi- 
vidual. 

It will generally be allowed that the religion of Nature 
is insufficient to furnish us with clear and conclusive discoveries 
of God. At the best it has no fit vehicle to convey the idea 
of a purely spiritual being to our minds, and it possesses no 
audible voice to communicate his will. Even if we could 
suppose that God were to hold communion with man through 
material nature — if he were to assume some resplendent 
appearance, like the rainbow or the sunbeam ; or to crown 
some mountain summit, as he did ancient Sinai, with the 
sublime but terrifying attendants of his majesty ; such repre- 
sentations would be subject to the double disadvantage that 
while, on the one hand, they would be inferior and unfit 
adequately to convey a manifestation of infinite majesty ; on 
the other hand, their excessive splendour would overpower the 
worshipper, and disqualify him for intercourse with the God 



£6 EYIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

who made them. But nature is no longer radiant now with 
the revelations of God, or vocal with his messages ; all its 
communications are significant of divine estrangement. It 
tells us — in the dimness of its spiritual instructions, and the 
confusion and strife of man's intense struggles after truth — that 
we have wandered from God, and he has withdrawn from us ; 
but it cannot teach us how tve may return, or He may be 
restored ; it cannot realise to us a God unseen, or reconcile a 
God offended ; and if left onl}^ to the truths, which the religion 
of nature teaches, the 3^earnings of the human soul after an 
absent and unknown God, can neither be suppressed nor satis- 
fied ; so that man must be given over to waste his life in 
intense longings after a clearer revelation, and a more appa- 
rent Deity. 

Or, if we turn to the religions of heathenism to discover in 
their systems a satisfactory manifestation of God to man, we 
must be equally disappointed. These have set forth before 
us, for our imitation and reverence, either a heartless combi- 
nation of unapproachable pride, which frowns upon us by its 
remote dignity, a.nd freezes us by its forbidding indifference ; 
or they present, as their gods, an odious compound of vul- 
garity and vice, which differs nothing from the worst of man- 
kind, except in its greater power to perpetrate wickedness. If 
Pagan systems seek to exalt the idea of God to us, they remove 
it into an ill-assorted and ridiculous elevation, which is alike 
beyond our reason and our reverence; or, if they bring Deity 
down into sympathy with human concerns, they make him to 
mingle so completely with the grovelling realities of life, as 
to provoke our contempt and disgust at the baseness of the 
supposed god. 

From these defective or spurious sources of information, the 
human soul turns, with intense solicitude, to discover, if pos- 
sible, some superior revelation of the divine character, which 
may invite our confidence, and command our homage. The 
religion which our race requires must unfold God as a being 
of infinite attractions. It must reveal a God unknown, bring 
near a God remote, and reconcile a God estranged. Dignity 
and condescension need to discover in his nature their perfect 
conjunction, to chasten our presumption by the constraint of 
his greatness, and to relieve our dread by the kindness of his 



CrIARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 87 

grace. If we can find a system of religion in our world, 
of assured evidence and approved experience, which exhibits 
to our contemplation a being of sinless perfection and be- 
nignity ; in whose circumstances singularly unite the widest 
extremes of glory and humiliation ; who declares to us a law^ 
of perfect excellence, and reflects in his own character a per- 
fect pattern of what he proclaims ; who stoops to no sufferance 
with sin, and yet turns with tender compassion to every sinner ; 
in short, who converts the revelation of himself into a pro- 
clamation of peace — amission of mercy and blessedness to our 
race; — then surely all hearts ought to be attracted to the 
study of such a character ; life could reveal no nobler purpose 
than to decide upon his claims ; until the glory of that divine 
love has dissolved our hearts into its own element, and we 
bow down at his feet to exclaim, '* this is life eternal, to know 
thee, the only true God.'' 

And yet what is all this but precisely what Christianity 
claims to discover in the mission and character of Jesus 
Christ ? It professes to set forth before our world, in the 
remarkable history of its Author, at once the grand argument 
and illustration of its divine authority ; in the declaration of 
its facts it reveals its own evidence, which invite our investi- 
gation and claim our enlightened conviction. 

This statement must alike be confirmed and vindicated. 
My simple proposition is, that the character of Jesus Chritt, 
as revealed in the New Testament, furnishes, amidst other 
evidences, a decisive irroof of the divine origin and authority 
of the Christian religion. The subject is of paramount 
interest and importance, inasmuch as no man can study the 
character of Christ without discovering the strongest motives 
to self-improvement ; and, if Christianity can vindicate its ov.n 
statements, the right appreciation of its founder's mission and 
work is the noblest attainment of man. * 

The course that opens to us is natural and apparent. We 
must first enquire what is remiarkable in the character of Jesus 
Christ ; and, secondly, endeavour to account for the existence 
or record of such excellence. Under the first department, 
we have simply to analyse the Xew Testament history on this 
subject — to know what it says ; and then we must be prepared 
to account for, and to explain the existence of such a testi- 



88 EviDE>:cr:s of Christianity. 

mony, wLet"her we affirm it to be true or false. In this way 
we shall be able to meet the fucts of the case fairly, and to 
glance at the various and conflicting opinions of infidelity upon 
this subject, as well as to submit the Christian's plea and 
explanation. 

On opening the New Testament we find it to affirm that, 
upwards of eighteen hundred years ago, there appeared in 
Palestine a person of extraordinary character. Born in 
humble circumstances, and reared in remote obscurity, he 
rose to a distinction which brooks no rivalry, and revealed an 
excellence vvhich shades in eclipse all created virtue, that ever 
appeared in our world. The idea of such moral beauty never 
occured to hun]an minds, except in connection with his appear- 
ance. Philosophy never found amidst its studies a discovery 
so sublime : poetry never dreamed, amidst its raptures, of one 
really so fair and good ; genius, at least genius uninspired, 
never kindled into a conception so glorious. 

The lowly Prophet of Galilee has realized a representation 
of virtue beyond all the examples of the past — all the visions 
of the future. It stands forth striking in its originality, and 
perfect in its simplicity ; borrowing its beauty from no pattern, 
and scorning all extrinsic adornment in its unsullied lustre. 
Does not every variety of excellence combine in the formation 
of his character, and shine in his life ? Wisdom and goodness 
are native to him ; truth, and righteousness, and love, are 
distilled in all his statements, and reflected in all his acts. 
Whatever is bold or gentle ; whatever is stern in integrity, or 
attractive in tenderness ; whatever can awaken awe, or excite 
admiration, or melt into affection, centre in him. We see in 
his career, displayed to daily view, the pattern of all obedience, 
the fountain of all truth, the model of all benevolence, the 
perfection of all loveliness, the sinless sympathies of man, the 
ministering kindness of more than angel, the condescension 
and compassion of God. Let us follow the Scripture narra- 
tive, that we may certify this description. 

Looh at the recorded acts of Jesus. His life is one unbroken 
flow of benevolence — one continuous act of doing good. Miracles 
of majesty and grace attend upon his ministry, as if the uni- 
verse were laid under contribution for the welfare of man, 
and its laws were held in suspension in the hands of this mys- 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 89 

iei lous personage for our good. Wherever he appears, disease 
departs at his approach ; and death surrenders and restores its 
victims at his word. " All vrants he relieves, all tears he 
dries ;" mourners flock to him to be healed of their broken 
hearts ; and madness sits at his feet, clothed and in its right 
mind. And jet this marvellous power is never expended, 
save only on deeds of mercj. It inflicts no calamity, it calls 
down no curse ; it interposes only to bless mankind ; and we 
follow Jesus Christ in the walks of his marvellous love, to feel 
as if heaven had come down in him, on a mission of mercy to 
men, and this were its omnipotence to save. 

Or, listen to the truths ivhich he proclaims. There is a 
tone and bearing in the discourses of Christ which belong to 
no other teacher. Where others fortify their statements by 
adducing authorities, he asserts his own ; where others argue, 
he decides. " He speaks as one having authority." The same 
sway which he exercises over the domain of Xature, he claims 
in the fields of truth and religion. The dignity is natural to 
him, and he avows himself to be the Master. What although 
he had never studied in the schools of the learned ? all truth lay 
transparent to his view, and is distilled in purest flow in his 
discourse. Old truths are revived by him with new sanctions ; 
things obscure become apparent in his illustration ; while, 
above all, he rises into discoveries to which no prophet ever 
previously soared, while he lays open the mysteries of redemp- 
tion, and brings to light the secrets of the world to come. 
Was ever truth so richly attractive ; was ever eloquence so 
sublime ? See, he is the poor man's preacher ; *' the common 
people heard him gladly,'^ and even the officers who are sent 
to apprehend him, melted by the power of that more than mortal 
oratory, confess his supremacy, as they cry, " Never man 
spake like this man." 

Once more, consider the sufferings which he hare, and the 
spirit in which he endured therii. Never did sinless excel- 
lence appear on earth, save in the person of Christ, and never 
could excellence be more evil requited. The beautiful blame- 
lessness of his life could not save him from malignity. His 
miracles were misinterpreted and misunderstood, even by those 
whom they benefitted ; and the very race whom he loved, and 
came to redeem and to bless, were the first to revile, to perse- 



90 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

cute, to crucify him. And jei, who ever saw liim repel an in- 
jury, or resent a wrono^ ? The spotless righteousness which 
defies every charge is silent at the bar of unjust men. The 
very majesty of meekness appears in him, who bears calmly 
every indignity, and endures every infliction. " He is led as 
a lamb to the slaughter." And how sublimely does he 
wrestle with his mysterious sufferings, and yet resign himself 
to bear them. How does he rise above his own woes, to com- 
fort the women of Jerusalem — to bless in his dying hour his 
widowed mother and weeping followers, and to redeem the soul 
of the dying felon at his side, until his mighty spirit breathes 
itself out in death with that matchless petition for his mur- 
derers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."' 

As we stand in the survey of a character so majestic and so 
matchless— so full of human sympathies, and yet so superior 
to all other human natures, we are compelled to admit that the 
excellence of Jesus Christ, which is so well fitted to awaken 
our admiration and delight, demands our most serious investi- 
gation, and no man is entitled either to despise or to defer the 
consideration of his claims. Jesus Christ, in the record which 
reveals him, claims to be Divine. Professedly, he reveals 
himself as the messenger of divine love to our world, who 
came to vindicate the divine honour, to avenge the transgres- 
sion of the divine law, by fulfilling its precepts, and bearing 
its penalty, and to redeem sinners of mankind by forming his 
love in their hearts, and advancing them into the participation 
of his own divine nature. It is not enough for any man to 
disbelieve or deny this testimony. It yet remains for him, in 
such a case, to account for the existence of such a character as 
that of Jesus Christ. The burden of proof here rests upon the 
unbeliever, and he is bound to furnish satisfactory reasons not 
only why the character of Christ does not bear to him the 
marks of a divine testimony, but also how the conception of 
such excellence, and the existence of such a testimony, are to 
be explained. 

On this subject infidel writers are not agreed. They differ 
widely from one another ; and the history of human opinions 
is ever casting up some new notion which explodes the pre- 
vailing explanation, and leads to a new theory as to the cha- 
racter of Jesus Christ. In this variation of sentiment among 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 91 

those who deny or doubt the reality of Christ's existence and 
excellence, we mark a lurking dissatisfaction vdth all existing 
explanations ; and jet the more modern theories, for the most 
part, are but the reproduction of some ancient form of unbelief, 
under a novel dress, so that in dealing with the one, we include 
the other. It shall be our aim, in the sequel of this lecture, 
to submit to a candid but searching examination, the miOre 
prominent opinions of doubters on this subject, so as to discover, 
if possible, where truth in this point lies, and whether the 
character of Jesus Christ can be accounted for on any other 
conclusion than that which Scripture maintains — that it is of 
divine origin and authority, and that the testimony which con- 
tains it, is the Book of God. 

The first supposition is, can the character of Jesvs Christ 
he attributed to impostiire — was it assiunecl in fraud ? This, 
it will be perceived, is a personal charge, which, if it have any 
foundation in truth, goes directly to impeach the integrity of 
Christ, and to assail his morality. It is a species of attack 
which is bold as it is rare; for even infidelity itself, however 
intensely it may attack the Christian system, has usually pre- 
served the decency, to do no violence to the personal character 
of its author. Imposture or fraud are odious crimes. They 
not only imply habitual and systematic falsehood, but they 
also inflict a public wrong, by imposing upon others. Like 
all deceit, however, they carry with them the means of their 
own detection, in their self-contradiction. That which is false- 
hood, cannot always seem to be truth ; and wherever virtue is 
worn only as a mask, it will help to detect and to punish the 
counterfeit that lurks beneath it. If any element of imposture 
was to be found in the character of Jesus, it would have been 
detected from the first. Malignity watched him from the be- 
ginning with deadly aim, and vrould have gloated ferociously 
over his detection and downfall. It was the triumph of stain- 
less integrity only that could confront such cen seriousness, and 
dare it to the charge, as he said, " "Which of you convinceth 
me of sin?" and it formed alike the vindication and avenge of 
his wronged and righteous excellence, when the dying testi- 
mony of the traitor was uncontradicted even by his murderers, 
** I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." 
Imposture can only assume appearances for a purpose — it has 



^2 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

always some personal or sordid aim. But what semblance of 
selfishness can be detected in any act or statement of Christ ? 
Were not the riches of the universe at his disposal in his mi- 
racles of mercy, and yet he was emphatically a poor man? 
" Foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but the 
Son of Man had not where to lay his head." He was a de- 
pendant on others' bounty, while he was blessing all. He re- 
lieves all wants save his own, and onli/ for his own sorrows he 
seeks no remedy. Never was nature so unselfish. It refuses 
no sacrifice, and yet it seeks no human reward. It even de- 
scends voluntarily to an ignominious and cruel death, for the 
sake of those who were his enemies, and leaves to our world 
the finest tribute of disinterested and deathless love that ever 
adorned our nature or blessed our race. 

Is not imposture, also, unscrupulous in its procedure ? It 
will suppress truth and compromise principle, and pander to 
popular prejudices — perhaps to vulgar vices — in order to gain 
public favour, and secure the objects of its guilty ambition. 
Noted examples of such fraud have been found in our world. 
How shall we characterize them ? Do we think of the Arabian 
chief — the most conspicuous because the m.ost successful of all 
religious adventurers ? A man of bold and bad heart, daring 
in enterprise, dauntless in execution — of restless ambition and 
relentless cruelty — by turns a religious fanatic and a sanguin- 
ary fiend, ready to cajole the credulous to his faith, to coerce 
the helpless, or to conquer the objector on the battle-field. 
We see in such a compound of artifice and enthusiasm, the 
glaring brand of imposture. There is nothing good in his creed 
which has not been borrowed, without acknowledgment, from 
better systems than his own ; and he has only infused into it 
the baseness of his own vices, as a bribe to abominable licen- 
tiousness, while he uses religion but as a ladder to his blood- 
thirsty ambition, and assumes the guise of a prophet to gratify 
his lawless lust of power. 

Can we bring the name of Jesus Christ into contact with 
such a character, without realizing the force of the contrast, 
and finding tlie whole picture happily reversed. The Prophet 
of Nazareth reveals a life of entire self-sacrifice. The religion 
which he proclaimed panders to no popular prejudice or cor- 
rupt inclination. It reveals a system distasteful^ for its very 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 93 

strictness, to our depraved natures, while it repudiates and 
denounces all appeal to civil force in the propagation and de- 
fence of its principles. Its Author struck at the root of all 
personal aims or ambition in everj act of his eventful life. 
He demolishes unsparingly the spiritual pride and religious 
nationality of His countrymen. He encounters their deadliest 
malignity by destroying all idea of the temporal dominion of 
the Messiah. He shrinks from all offers of their applause, 
and spurns their attempts to make him a king ; and while the 
truths he utters are all his own, and his spotless life realizes 
everything he preaches, he braves every obloquy in the publi- 
cation of that truth, and seems to ask from a guilty and un- 
grateful world nothing for himself, save that which his ene- 
mies were too willing to afford him — the ignominy and agony 
and death of the cross. 

It is impossible, in such a connection, to speak of imposture. 
The life and death of Jesus alike forbid the supposition ; and 
were we soberly to entertain the charge of Iraud in such a case, 
then we must be prepared to conclude that innocence may be 
artifice, and virtue be another name for vice — that light and 
darkness, goodness and guilty may meet and harmonize in the 
same character, and that truth itself may be a lie. 

I forbear from urging a lower charge, which is sometimes 
advanced at this stage of the enquiry. It is said, although 
Jesus Christ were not altogether an impostor, might he not he 
an enthysiast ? There seems to be more of sneer than charge 
in this statement, and there is no argument in a mere expres- 
sion of scorn. If, by the term enthusiast, it be meant that 
Christ was full of religious zeal in the fulfilment of his mission, 
the world has yet to learn that it is a fault to be sincere ; and 
it can never be seriously regarded as a matter of charge that 
Christ was zealously affected in a good cause. But if the epi- 
thet be meant to convey an insinuation that Jesus Christ was 
little better than an amiable fanatic, and that his sincerity is 
to be vindicated at the e^-pense of his judgment, then the ready 
refutation of so infirm a charge meets us in every record of his 
life. "Where can we discover traces of his extravagance ? 
Not in his humble bearing ; not in his singularly unatl'ected 
simplicity of character; not even in his calm aiid self-possessed 
preaching. He strips his Messiahship of all that could kindle 



94 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

fancy, or fire youthful ambition. His discourses embrace the 
interests of both worlds at once ; and in pointing us to the 
paramount claims of the life to come, do not render us in- 
diuerent to present and urgent duty. The wisdom of the sage, 
and the prudence of the moralist, blend in the devout instruc- 
tions of Jesus ; and as we sit at his feet and listen to his words, 
we learn the lessons of a piety to which the world has found 
nothing equal — which is alike removed from the heartlessness 
of the stoic, and the extravagances of superstition, and which 
commends itself to all the better feelings of enlightened devo- 
tion, at once by its calm conviction and its devout enthusiasm. 

The course of our argument, up to this point, has j^roceeded 
upon the presumption, that Christ was a real personage, aud 
that the narrative of his life, as recorded in the gospels, was a 
statement of facts. The amount of our deduction from what 
has been advanced may thus be summed up: — The character 
of Christ, as reve iled in the Scriptures, discovers a represen- 
tation of matchless excellence ; it forms an idea of moral 
beauty superior to all that man ever conceived, and it embodies 
that perfection in living reality. Our world has seen nothing 
like, nothing equal, to Tesus Christ. How are we to account 
for this glorious manifestation ? History afforded no model 
on which it could be formed. Philosophers had miserably 
failed in conceiving any kindred representation of tried and 
perfect virtue. Enthusiasm could not kindle or create such 
excellence ; neither could it sustain the uniform dignity of such 
piety. Impostare in such a case is simply impossible. Are 
we not, then, shut ap to the conclusion — a conclusion forced 
upon us by the consistency of the case, in accounting for the 
facts — that, after all, Jesus Christ is not only a real person, 
and that his mission is divine, but that the Scripture which 
reveals him, finds not only in his character an evidence of its 
own divine authority, but furnishes also the only key of ex- 
planation for his manifestation, v/hen it affirms, that this is 
the humiliation of divine mercy for human redemption, and 
that beneath the deep disguise which veils him, the conscious 
Deity stands confessed, so that '' this is the true God, and eter- 
nal life V 

Before we can reach and certify this conclusion, another and 
serious form of objection meets us. It is asked, may not 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 95 

the character of Jesus Christ he after all a fiction? This 
objection takes various forms of expression, such as that the life 
of Christ is a myth, a fable, a fancy. That it contains an 
ideal representation of the perfectability of human nature, or 
furnishes a m.odel phenomenon of God, who, they say, exists, 
and is diffused in universal life, and instinct, within and 
around us. In whatsoever of these forms the objection is 
stated, it reduces itself to one charge — that Jesus Christ had 
no historical existence, and that the gospel narrative is no 
better than a philosophical dream — a romance — a fiction. The 
grounds on which this objection rests, so far as I am able 
honestly to discover them, seem to be strong assertions, 
mingled with a spirit of mystical philosophy, w^hich gives an 
ideal and unreal meaning to everything ; and finds its only 
strength in devising ingenious theories, or discovering original 
and startling criticism. The objection, it will be perceived, 
in this instance, is not personal ; it does not assail the charac- 
ter of Christ, whom it professes to regard as an unreal per- 
sonage, and to respect as a beautiful ideal vision of wisdom 
and goodness. The charge is evidently aimed against the 
authors of the gospels, who have attempted to palm, according 
to this theory, a monstrous imposture upon the world, in de- 
picting a character that never existed, and declaring them- 
selves to be eye witnesses of transactions that never occurred ; 
and above, all, in asserting that this unreal narrative was a 
manifestation of the true God. An objection so bold should 
be well furnished with assured facts ; it is not enough that it 
be able to construct its own theory, and set aside the claims 
of scripture summarily ; it must also grapple with apparent 
evidences, which directly destroy its conclusions, and meet 
opposing facts, by stronger testimony, which shall explain or 
disprove them. The burden of proof, in this case, lies on the 
unbeliever in the gospel narrative. That narrative exists; 
some persons must have been its authors ; if the objector says 
it is a literary forgery, by whom was it perpetrated ? When 
did it appear ? Was no voice lifted against the glaring 
cheat ? And how did enlightened men in all ages, since its 
supposed transactions, swallow the palpable deception ? The 
objector is bound to answer these inquiries : the testimony of all 
antiquity, of all history, of all literary records, both of friends 



98 EVIDENCES or CHRISTIANITY. 

and foes of Cbristianity, is against him ; and he can onlj 
escape from a painful charge of presumption or untruth, hj 
disproving that uniform testimony, and adducing a stronger 
array of opposing facts. 

But the denial of the reputed authorship of the gospels, will 
not explain the appearance of the remarkable character of 
Jesus Chri&t in these documents. Whether we admit or deny 
that authorship, a difficulty presses on the man w^ho disbelieves 
in the reality of that narrative. It he maintain that ihe 
whole affair is a forgery, even supposing that he could prove 
his assertion, it yet remains for him to reconcile the monstrous 
contradiction, how a man of falsehood could create or conceive 
the moral loveliness which is disclosed in that book, or proclaim 
his own eternal shame and condemnation, by publishing it ; 
and how, above all, the book which is the most beautiful de- 
fence of truth and virtue, should yet itself be the most pal- 
pable lie in the whole world. Even if this difficulty be sur- 
moiinted, it still further awaits the objector to explain how 
the real or reputed authors of the gospel narrative conceived 
its sublime subject, and managed to sustain, with such perfect 
verisimilitude, what after all is affirmed to be only a phantasm ; 
how fiction has thus outshone all philosophy — how morality 
has found its finest lessons and loveliest representations in a 
fable; and how the fishermen of Galilee, or some parties 
equally obscure, have conspired to invent the most extraordin- 
ary, and consistent, and godlike excellence that ever adorned 
our world, and have palmed off the deception upon the world 
as a reality without detection. The man who can meet these 
difficulties, and master them, must have larger powders of be- 
lief than belong to ordinary men, and we must leave him in 
the hands of the elegant infidel essayist of the last century, 
who writes, " Shall we say that the history of the gospel is in- 
vented at pleasure ? No. It would be more inconceivable 
that a number of men had in concert produced this book from 
their own imaginations, than it is that one man has furnished 
the subject of it. The morality of the gospel, and its general 
tone, w^ere beyond the conception of Jewish authors ; and this 
history of Jesus Christ has marks of truth so palpable, so 
strikino', and so perfectly inimitable, that its inventor w.^uld 
excite our admiration more than its hero." 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 97 

The character of the men who wrote the gospel narrati\re 
gives credibility to their statements. Their worldly condition 
renders the superiority of their doctrine inexplicable, without 
admitting a divine revelation. They were competent wit- 
nesses of the facts which they attested, having personally 
mingled in their occurrence. Their own convictions had been 
reluctantly and slowly won to sentiments so repulsive to 
all their fondest prejudices. Their narrative itself is so 
artless, and so devoid of all attempt at colouring, as if they 
felt unworthy to mingle their own comments with the holy 
beauties of such a life, that it wins its way silently to our 
confidence. And besides that, these men had no motive to 
misrepresent the truth in this case ; they gave the surest tes- 
timony of their sincerity in the sufferings to which they sub- 
mitted for Jesus' sake, and in solemnly sealing their testimony 
with the surrender of their lives. Xo sane man will readily 
die to certify a falsehood, least of allwhen that falsehood does 
not concern his own interest, and the assertion of it loads him 
onljr with infamy ; so that we must either believe that the 
Apostles and their coadjutors were fools or something worse— 
notwithstanding the superiority of their narrative — ^because 
they threw away their lives for what they knew to be a false- 
hood ; or we are shut up infallibly to the conclusion that the 
life of Jesus Christ is, as the gospel narrative affirms, the very 
truth most pure. 

But our case for the defence of the gospel narrative is not 
closed by the testimony of the evangelical authors. The un- 
believer in the reality of the character and life of Christ has 
6till to encounter and set aside another class of evidence in 
this case. Not only were the mission and claims of Christ 
exhibited to contemporaries in the writings of Evangelists ; 
it is also demonstrable that the main facts of his life were re- 
corded in other sacred writings for ages previous to his appear- 
ance in our world. It is indubitable that the Old Testament 
contains numerous and distinct statements of the time of Christ's 
appearance — ere the sceptre departed from Judah, and while the 
second tem*ple stood — of the place of his birth, at Bethlehem 
Ephratah — of the family from which he was to spring, the 
house and lineage of David — of the condition of his life and 
character of his experience— a poor, afflicted, despised man — 
NO. VII. 



98 EVIDENCES OF CHRlSTIAXITr. 

of his vicarious and bloody death — of his borrowed grave — of 
his subsequent resurrection and ascension — of the nature of 
his doctrine, and design of his mission, and extent of his king- 
dom ; each, all, are delineated with a fidelity and minuteness, 
as if they belonged to history, not to prediction. Now it is 
as clearly capable of proof as any fact in ancient history, that 
these predictions were on record for ages before their accom- 
plishment in the appearance of Jesus Christ in our world. 
They had been treasured by the Jewish Commonwealth for 
ages as their most sacred trust. The most ancient part of 
them had been preserved in their own language for genera- 
tions, by the rival race of Samaritans ; they had been read in 
the synagogues, every Sabbath day ; they had been translated 
into Greek two hundred and fifty years before the Christian 
era ; and Jews and heathens alike had declared their great 
antiquity, upwards of eighteen hundred years ago. It remains 
that we ask the unbeliever who refuses to allow the reality of 
Christ's existence, how he can explain the appearance of these 
predictions, and the fact of their subsequent accomplishment ? 
There could be no possible collusion between parties so various, 
and who lived in ages so remote from each other. The facts 
could never be anticipated by any conceivable human fore- 
sight, as they were too numerous, and minute, and unlikely. 
Unless, therefore, we can set aside the testimony of all 
antiquity, and destroy the conclusive concurrence of facts, we 
are deprived of all other decision in the case than that which 
soundest philosophy and evidence alike confirm — that because 
foreknowledge is clearly the exclusive prerogative of God, and 
because the secrets of futurity can only be anticipated and 
revealed when He speaks, therefore we are warranted to con- 
clude that the remarkable predictions which were accomplished 
in the life and death of Jesus Christ, prove his mission to be 
divine, and form an important part of the revelation of God 
to men. 

If still some demur to this finding, we leave them to digest 
one other popular argument, which we think is not altogether 
destitute of force. Let any man, who doubts the fact, ask a 
Jew, if Jesus Christ were a real person, and actually was 
crucified on Calvary ? The witness, in this instance, will, at 
least, be acquitted of all partiality to the Christian opinion ; 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 99 

and yet this enemy of Christianity will answer, that assuredly 
Jesus Christ did appear in his fatherland — that the Jews of 
that age did certainly put him to death ; and that it was for 
this deed — all deserved, as to a Jew it still seems — that his 
race have ever since been persecuted and proscribed by all 
Christian nations. The son of Israel will certify the reality 
of Christ's appearance in our w^orld, and he will vindicate, at 
the same time, the act of his crucifixion, as a righteous deed, 
notwithstanding of all that it has cost his people. Now, if 
the history of Christ were a fiction, I ask why no Jew has 
ever made the discovery, and wherefore that whole nation 
has been willing to lie under the scandal and the curse of 
having crucified one who never really existed ? I ask farther, 
why the man, who has made this discovery, which the Jew- 
could not reach, should suiFer a whole nation to lie under 
this murderous reproach ? Let the infidel, if he TtouM be 
true to his avowed convictions, reprove this scandalous injury, 
and repair the w^ong. And yet, who ever heard of an un- 
believer in Christ's reality, demanding the Jews' restoration 
to enfranchisement among the nations upon this ground ? - .It ' 
might create a smile among students of historical evidence ; 
even the Jew himself would be the first to repudiate siich 
advocacy on his behalf; it would expose its abettor probably 
to some measure of reproach ; but it would at least prove the 
sincerity of his sentiments. We wait deliberately for the 
appearance of such an advocate of Jewish rights and avenger 
of his wrongs ; but it is a significant fact, that in ail the ranks 
of infidelity not one such individual has ever yet appeared ; 
and we leave the world to judge, in such a case, what conclu- 
sion we are to draw from the Jew's contradictory assertion, 
and the unbeliever's remarkable silence, but that the nearly 
universal verdict is true, which affirms that Jesus Christ has 
come in the flesh, and is really the Son of God. 

I have thus glanced at the leading objections advanced by 
unbelievers against the character of Jesus Christ. There are 
some minute phases into which infidelity dissolves itself, which 
we have not specially considered. This would have been 
impossible under the compass of a single lecture ; but the 
whole forms of objections, so far as we know them, are re- 
presented under the heads which we have adduced. We 



100 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

have sought to sustain fairness and candour in the dis- 
cussion of these principles ; and we think we are now en- 
titled to say that none of the forms of objection have been 
sufficient to set aside the claims of Christ's character to our 
admiration, or to account satisfactorily for his surpassing 
excellence. 

It remains, therefore, that we enquire, as the only other 
likely solution, whether the record which reveals him does not 
also satisfactorily explain the phenomenon of his appearance. 
If, for this purpose, we examine the scriptures, everything 
becomes at least consistent, and there is no disguise. They 
exhibit the excellence of Jesus Christ as perfect, because they 
avow him to be divine. He is discovered to the world " as 
the brightness of the divine glory," " in whom dwells all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily'' — as *' Immanuel God in our 
nature.'' Not only is he represented as the revealer of God 
to men, who proclaims his truth, and declares his law to the 
race, but also and pre-eminently as the Mediator between God 
and men, who comes to magnify his own law in the room of 
sinners, by fulfilling its precepts and enduring its penalty, and 
thus to reconcile heaven and earth. In the light of scripture 
Jesus Christ thus becomes at once the fullest and clearest mani- 
festation of God to man, and the grandest expression of his 
love. He is declared to be God, in condescension to our con- 
dition — Godj in compassion for our misery — God, interposing 
for our redemption — God on an embassy of love — the Divine 
missionary of mercy — the sinless sacrifice for sin and substi- 
tute of the guilty — the great exaraplar of all excellence — the 
model of man's ultimate and only perfection. Such represen- 
tations of Jesus give at least significance and consistency to 
those mysterious extremes of glory and abasement which meet 
in his person and mingle in his experience. They relieve and 
reconcile the strange lights and shades — the flashes of Divinity 
which contrast with the deep gloom of his humiliation, so as to 
lend to each other a mutual meaning, just as the clouds which 
gather around the sun, although they occasionally obscure his 
brightness, are also in tnrn enkindled by his radiance, and 
increase by their attendance the magnificence of his glory. 

The love of Christ, as scripture reveals it, explains every- 
thing in the Saviour's character ; but what can explain his 



CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 101 

love ? Surely it merits, at least, the serious examination of 
every sincere inquirer after truth. It is impossible to study 
bis character honestly, v^ithout being improved by acquaint- 
ance with such refined excellence ; and if scripture speaks 
truly on this subject, the secret of all true virtue, and the se- 
curity of all genuine happiness, are to be found in the know- 
ledge of Christ. His love, it affirms, disarms hostility to God, 
and blesses with divine forgiveness and favour ; and it only 
requires, according to this system, that we heartily receive the 
revelation which he gives of himself, in order to be changed 
into the same image of obedience and beauty— to find a divine 
friendship which survives all human changes, and outlives the 
shock of death, and to become heirs of a glorious immortality, 
where we shall wear his likeness without a stain, and enjoy 
his love without alloy and without end. 

A religion which carries with it such credentials — which 
reveals, in the character of its author, the excellence to which 
it exalts his followers — claims at least a trial of its virtues. 
No man at least is warranted to pronounce Christianity to be 
a failure, who has never fairly put it to the proof, by receiving 
it on its own terms. Nor is the disregard or rejection of it 
a matter of light moment, at least according to its showing ; 
for beyond it, truth has no message, mercy has no plea, eternity 
no happiness ; and, therefore — if at least we be able to bear 
it — God himself lifts up his latest, his only appeal to man in 
its voice when he says, " This is the gift of God — eternal life ; 
and this life is in his Son." 



( 102 ) 



LECTURE VI. 
ON THE 

MOKALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 

IN 

ITS SUPEEIOEITY TO THE DEFECTIYE SYSTEMS OF MEN. 

BY THE REV. JAMES R. M'GAVIN. 



The religion of the Bible, like every other work of God, has 
been a thing of growth and gradual development. The 
beautiful system rose into being with the wants of the race, 
and increased in glory with the course of ages ; to preserve the 
light of truth and the blessings of redemption, side by side, 
with the growing ignorance and guilt of mankind. The time 
was when revelation — *' now antique and venerably old ''" — 
was yet in its infancy : from an inconsiderable beginning it has 
been nurtured by a series of divine discoveries, and under 
the discipline of successive dispensations, to its present matured 
and perfect state. But under all the varieties of its dress, 
and at every stage of its development, the truth of scripture 
has continued in its nature unchangeably the same ; it reveals 
the same God, proposes the same plan of mercy, asserts the 
same law, and appeals to the same eternal obligations. Truth 
and virtue indeed, like the God from whom they flow, are 
necessarily unalterable : there can come no change that can 
render sin less odious or destructive ; and it is beyond the 
power of any convulsion to dim the spotless glory of the divine 
nature, or to relax the strictness of his law. Hence the rule 
of man's life, and the claims of the eternal God upon his 
obedience, being based upon the essential relations between 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103 

the Creator and the creature, can only change or die with, 
these relations ; they come down, through all dispensations, 
imperishable ; and the course of ages, which has corrode! or 
swept away all other terrestrial things, refuses to touch or to 
transform their everlasting obligations. 

These remarks are necessary to show that in the morality 
of the New Testament we do not profess to discover a d liferent 
system of morals from what the Old Testament Scriptures 
reveal. Tt is a mistake to suppose that Jesus Christ came to 
proclaim a new law of obedience to man ; he is not slow him- 
self to repudiate such a supposition. " Think not," he says, 
" that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not 
come to destroy, but to fulfil.'* That the Author of the Chris- 
tian dispensation did invest the Divine law with more awful 
and inviolable sanctions, and add the impulse of new and nobler 
motives to man's obedience, will be denied by no genuine be- 
liever in the truth of scripture ; but it must equally be affirmed, 
that the morality which Jesus Christ commanded was emphati- 
cally and substantially the same as scripture had declared 
throughout the whole series of its revelations ; whether you 
read its maxims as first written upon the heart of yet unfailen 
man, when he looked up in virgin innocence upon the face of 
God, which fell reflected upon him without a cloud ; or listen 
to its fearful sanctions from Sinai's summit, where the full sum- 
mary of human duty was written for our instruction by the 
finger of Jehovah, on two tables of stone. And yet we turn 
not to find our model of scripture morality, by retracing that 
first fair picture of man's sinless virtue, whicb now sin has 
spoiled and defaced ; neither do we love to learn the moral law 
of God, amidst the terrific grandeurs of " the mount that 
burned with fire," where also ceremonial rites were imposed, 
which passed away with the dispensation that gave them 
birth ; and a judicial system was founded, which perished with 
the nation for whom it was made. Rather let us follow the 
Prophet of Nazareth to the mountain in Galilee, whe^e he 
proclaims the principles of Christian morality. There the 
authority of God swells out into all its sublime and compre- 
hensive claims, and reveals its unrelaxing and inviolable strict- 
ness ; but the sternness of law is softened and attempered to 
human hearts by the melting power of matchless kindness — li 



104 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

system of duty is revealed, all worthy of God to command, 
and man to render, which rises superior to all the lessons of 
human philosophy, and contrasts in immeasurable pre-emi- 
nence with all the defective systems of men. In that voice 
Christians recognize the supreme authority. They learn in 
that law the rule of their existence ; and while their inmost 
c-onvictions testify that the obedience there revealed is the only 
bond of human blessedness, they are compelled to challenge the 
world to produce a morality so pure, so attractive, so perfect, 
as is to be found in the teaching of Jesus Christ. 

It is not to be denied — nor do we seek to conceal the 
fact — that many systems of morality of various degrees 
of merit, have appeared in our world apart from the teach- 
ing of the scriptures. Heathen sages have severely studied the 
subject of human duty, and left behind them honourable 
memorials of their advancement in the science of morality. 
We speak in this instance not only of Cicero and Seneca 
— the later moralists of Rome ; but of Plato, Aristotle, 
Epicurus, and others of ancient Greece, whose systems of 
moral philosophy have been adopted and recast in the 
more modern schools of Hutchison, Clark, and Paley. We 
have no wish to depreciate these systems of the schools ; with 
some defects they formed a safeguard and defence of virtue in 
dark places, and in perilous times ; and they filled up a void 
in human history that would otherwise have been abandoned 
to benighted scepticism. How far human reason unaided 
could have constructed their respective theories, there is grave 
reason to doubt. There are few nations — if any — that have 
been left solely to the instruction of the light of nature. 
The truth of God, transmitted from the parent springs of the 
human family, may float far down in traditionary remem- 
brance into the domain of superstition, intermingling some 
good in its course. And just as there is no shore so rem.ote to 
which some useful spoils of ocean are not drifted from other 
scenes of storm and wreck ; or, as the planets may shed upon 
scenes of midnight darkness the radiance of the sunshine that 
long has left them — so the first lessons of morality imprinted 
by God upon the heart of man, or lessons subsequently borne by 
some stray leaves of God's truth, may mingle, and most probably 
have, mingled with the systems of so-called human morality^ 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTA!JENT. 105 

interfusing much that was fair and good, into what otherwise 
would have "been still more false and defective. We know 
certainly that some of the more celebrated heathen moralists 
were not entire strangers to the Scriptures ; and if in any 
measure they were indebted to these books for information, as 
well as to the dim light of traditionary truth — it will serve to 
account for many of those points of resemblance which human 
and divine systems disclose. It is an easy matter to construct a 
system if we are permitted to pick our materials from the ruins 
of former ages, or to import our principles from systems already 
revealed; and there is ground thus to believe tha.t what are 
called human systems of morality have been indebted to more 
than reason, having been supplemented in their discoveries 
alike by tradition and revelation. And yet with all the foreign 
aid which human codes of morality have borrowed, they can 
neither supplant nor rival the teaching of the Scriptures. 

That revelation of duty which comes from God, if we can 
find it, must always be the best, seeing that he is alike the 
legislative and executive authority of all obedience ; no teacher 
of morals can possibly take his place ; for as we find that, 
however the darkness of night may be alleviated by human 
inventions of light, which serve as a faint substitute in absence 
of the sun, yet they can never render the aunshine less neces- 
sary, or supersede his beams ; so the light of God's truth 
mast always transcend and eclipse by its surpassing brilliancy 
all the lesser lights that are kindled by its radiance. 

It is not our business, indeed, in this lecture, to maintain 
the grand argument that the Scriptures are the word of God : 
the auxiliary duty only devolves on us to shew, that the mo- 
rality of the New Testament, from its superiority to all the 
defective systems of men, ivarrants the CGnclusion that its 
code is divine. This proposition, we are convinced, may be 
satisfactorily established, whether we consider the ground of 
morality, or its standard, or its means, motives, opportunities, 
and examples. In each of these respects we are persuaded 
that the superiority of the gospel morality to every other sys- 
tem that may dispute its claims, may easily be made apparent ; 
and we invite your patient and candid attention while we 
seek to prove and certify our proposition. 

I, The gospel is superior to all human systems in iU fours- 



106 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

dation or ground of inorality, and this has respect to the 
principle of virtue in us. The question as to the foundation 
of morals has perplexed and divided casuists in all ages. If 
it be asked what makes an action good or virtuous ; some say 
because it is right, others because it is useful; while other classes 
maintain that it is because it is agreeable to nature, or to 
truth, or to the fitness of things, or to the general welfare. 
Each of these definitions may be satisfactory as a human ex- 
planation of what virtue is, but they can never serve as a 
ground of virtue from which our actions are to spring, for the 
following reasons : — they are too abstruse and difficult of ap- 
plication for guiding ordmarily the conduct of mankind ; they 
contain in them no sanctions of law, and therefore impose no 
obligations ; the breach of them may make a man's conduct 
unnatural, unreasonable, or useless, but it can scarcely pro- 
nounce it to be vicious ; and, finally, they confound the results 
of human conduct with the reasons and causes of it, so as to 
remove moral obligation from purifying the springs of human 
actions ; thus leaving man to learn his lessons of virtue only 
from the fruits of experience, after his character and habits 
have been formed. We prefer, therefore, to turn from the 
schools of philosophy to the sacred scriptures, to find in the 
revealed will of God the true and proper basis of all moral 
obligation. This offers us a ground of duty so distinct, as that 
no one may mistake it — so decisive as that all must own its 
awful sanctions. Nor are these the only commendations of 
the gospel system ; it proclaims its superiority to every rival, 
also, in its devoutness, its absoluteness, and its universality. 
Let us glance shortly at each of these in their order. 

How devout is the principle of the gospel morality ! and in 
this lies one secret of its superiority. Virtue can never grow 
out of Atheism. Wherever there is duty there must be a 
Deity ; for there can be no law without a lawgiver ; and God 
is the only source at once of all goodness and all authority. 
Human systems of morality, for the most part, have erred, 
either in disowning God altogether, or removing him into the 
distance ; so that men, in the matter of duty, were taught to 
forget God, or to act in utter disregard of him. Scripture 
exactly inverts this order of things ; it sends us directly to the 
footstool of the Eternal, to learn our first lessons of obedience 



MOR.iLITY OF THE XEW TESTAMENT. 10? 

from his lips, and to teach us to say, like the new-born apostle 
at starting, '' Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " 

In this spirit of divine acknowledgment lies the spring of 
all true-bred virtue. It submits the soul directly to a divine 
survey and arbitration, in which there can be neither disguise, 
reservation, nor escape. God is made to fill the soul in the 
formation of its principles, and the fulfilment of its practice. 
His dealing with that spirit is radical and thorough ; the fear 
of his name, and the fulfilment of his will, become the ruling 
passion of its existence ; it carries with it a noble bearing 
among the baser-born principles of earthly expediency ; and 
even while it is detained from the skies, on its way thither, it 
realizes this most blessed distinction, " that it pleases God." 

Again, how absolute is the principle of the gospel morality ! 
and in this lies another element of its superiority. The will 
of heaven must necessarily be decisive and supreme ; when 
He speaks it is the part of man to listen — when He commands 
it is our honour as well as our happiness to obey. We ex- 
pect a message from God to be explicit ; it is not likely that 
it will hesitate in its announcements, or palter with the claims 
of heaven ; if it vindicate its title to be divine, scripture 
must claim our entire submission. Let no man stumble at 
this statement. Scripture asks your reason to decide upon its 
evidences, and it invites that reason to study its contents ; but 
having received it as divine, and known what it says, there 
must be no dubious assent, or partial compliance ; we must 
follow the divine voice, and stand arrested at its bidding. This 
implicit submission to authority, which would be degrading if 
given to man, is ennobling to us when God is its object. It 
partakes of the dignity of the angelic nature, which delights 
to do his pleasure, and finds its bliss in obedience. There 
can be nothing more really noble than tlius to resolve our 
will into the will divine ; it terminates all controversy be- 
tween heaven and our hearts, and unites us, so to speak, with 
omnipotence. The man who has learned this heaven-born 
spirit is secure in all extremities ; when others doubt he is 
decided ; when others tremble and are undone, he rises into 
heroism ; *' God opens his way and makes his paths straight ;" 
and, with the consciousness of inward rectitude, and the ap- 
proving testimony of heaven, he only can realize the fabled 



108 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

triumph of the ancients, in tlie man who could feel fearless 
while the universe was falling in ruins around him ; and this 
is the very basis of gospel morality. 

Once more, is not this gospel principle of morality catholic 
or universal in its nature, and this completes its superiority 
in this department. In all the grounds of morality which 
the schoolmen propose, we mark the vitiating principle of 
partiality. Neither utility, nor the fitness of things, nor any 
of the other principles, is definite or catholic enough to be 
carried round among the race. It does not find a basis broad 
enough for man on which to build up a character for all 
eternity. The law of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, 
exclusively claims this peculiarity. It is framed for the race, 
by the author of our natures. It breathes no exclusiveness, 
allows no limitations, and makes no exceptions ; its appeal is 
to man when it cries, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart and with all thy soul ; and thy neighbour 
as thyself." To that cry the human soul everywhere is fit to 
listen, and to allow the claim ; it is congruous to our natures, 
and universal conscience thrills with the sovereign authority 
of the tidings. Where can we stop in the application of that 
universal law ? It can dive into the *' deepest profound" of 
human degradation, and lift man from the most deplorable 
profligacy into renewed beauty, and the reflection of the 
divine nature ; and it can stretch its reforming power into 
the remotest extremes of savage debasement, to bring bact 
the barbarism of embruted tribes to the refinements of civili- 
zation, and the blessings of religion. 

It is said that this law, however unlimited in nature, is not 
universal in fact, and that it has never really been submitted 
as the basis of moral duty to the race. The objection is 
curious as coming from philosophers ; for what system has 
been universally proclaimed? certainly not the systems of 
the schoolmen, or of infidelity ; for in this respect they are 
all of them less extensively circulated than the gospel. But 
the objection, as directed against the law of the gospel, over- 
looks the facts, that a system may be strictly catholic or 
universal, which is only partially preached, because, while its 
catholicity is divine, its publication is a work of man's instru- 
mentality, and may therefore be sinfully neglected ; besides^ 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 109 

revelation is strictly a gift of mercy to those who have for- 
feited all right to divine communications; and God is under 
no obligation to give another manifestation of his will to 
sinners, beyond the original law which they had violated. 
St'll, the gospel stands forth to proclaim the divine rule of 
lite to the race : in its nature it is fitted to all times — all 
places — all men ; and while it breathes its universal, offers 
and proclaims its universal law, it reveals its native supre- 
macy in that it challenges universal homage, and demands, 
as its future and destined award, the honours of universal 
dominion. 

Thus we find that, in the foundation of moral obligations, 
the Christian religion bears honourable contrast with all rival 
systems ; inasmuch as it nurses the soul into the formation 
of loftiest principles, and matures it into the fulfilment of 
virtues of the largest growth. But this superiority will 
farther appear if we consider, 

II. The gospel is superior to all human systems in its 
rule or standard of morality, and this has respect to the 
nature or quality of virtue. The idea of perfect wisdom and 
goodness is necessary, in order to create and attract toward 
it all inferior orders of excellence. God is the source from 
which all good is derived, and he can be its only perfect 
pattern ; whatever, therefore, shades his excellence, or re- 
moves it from view, deteriorates the moral taste, and destroys 
the dignity of virtue. In this, human systems of morality 
have most miserably failed, by withdrawing from them the 
ruling idea of a Supreme Intelligence, so as to sap the strength 
of all moral obligation, and destroy its strictness. Virtue 
can only be sustained in any system by the solemn sanctions 
of law: if you degrade duty into a mere matter of arrange- 
ment or inclination, you strip it of all its solemnity, and 
remove the strongest motives to its performance. In this 
also the systems of men contrast most unfavourably with the 
morality of the New Testament. They, in substituting for 
the strictness of the divine law a standard of their own, have 
left duty to be settled by the variable decisions of reason or 
inclination, so as to surrender men to any relaxation of con- 
duct or latitude of indulgence, at pleasure. If the supreme 
law of heaven is to be dispensed with, it may well be asked, 



110 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

what rule men will provide in its place to remain as a safe- 
guard for virtue, and a barrier against crime ? The question is 
one which the schools of philosophy and the history of infi- 
delity are ill prepared to answer ; for in those fields from 
which Scripture sanctions were driven or withdrawn, we only 
behold the extinction of all that is great or good, and the most 
rank production of monstrous wickedness. Nor is it only in 
the abstract view of the case, that the superiority of the gos- 
pel is sustained. Examine the practical details of duty and 
the same conclusion is certified. 

Is not the superiority of the gospel morality apparent in 
its remarkable extent and coinprehenBiveness. Man can con- 
struct no law which is not essentially defective, and subject 
to serious evasions. It cannot reach to the dominion of the 
heart, and even its strictest survey of the conduct is most par- 
tial. Under the severest administration of human legislation 
secret crimes must escape, and virtue remains overlooked and 
unrewarded. It is impossible that it should be otherwise when 
men are the administrators ; the most intolerable despotism 
cannot compel admission into the secrets of men's bosoms, or 
have entire supervision of all they do. But it is entirely 
otherwise with God : from Him no darkness can disguise our 
secret thoughts, and he is acquainted with all our ways. The 
law which He imposes penetrates to the inmost recesses of the 
heart ; it sifts the motives, sits in judgment on the temper 
and spirit, as well as pronounces sentence on the conduct and 
life. In this one perfection at least of the gospel morality 
appears ; it removes the tribunal of character from the partial 
and imperfect judgment of men to the cloudless survey and un- 
erring decision of heaven. As if the reputation of a blameless 
life were not sufficient, it lays bare the secret soul ; it teaches 
that as a man thinketh in his heart so is he, and it demands 
entire purity of spirit. How comprehensive must the ranges 
of that law be which extends its strict and spiritual authority 
to every motive, and wish, and act of our lives ! it waits 
not only to check the evil passion from perpetration, but it 
would uproot the very seeds of temptation from within us. 
" Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt not kill; but 
I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother with- 
out a cause, shall be in danger of the council ; and whoso shall 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Ill 

pay unto Ms brother, Thou fool! shall be in danger of hell 
fire/' A law which is at once so extensive and so minute, 
must be eminently expulsive of all sin, and equally powerful 
in the production and growth of holiness ; and as we commit 
ourselves to its guidance and guardianship, we feel that it 
exalts our natures into truest nobility, and forms us into 
affinity with the skies. 

Does not the superior excellence of the gospel morality 
appear also in its unrelaxing and inviolable strictness, " The 
law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good/' 
Founded upon the divine nature, its principles are specific and 
fixed ; to suppose that it could relax its claims, must be to 
imagine that originally those claims were excessive and there- 
fore unjust ; or to believe that God would remit its penalty 
without satisfaction, is to admit that he would take less than 
he had originally exacted, and would thus wink at his own 
dishonour. No ! The law maintains all its demands and 
preserves the divine glory inviolate. In this the necessity of 
a Mediator is a]3parent — one who is above all obedience and 
yet could fulfil all righteousness — who is free from all per- 
sonal obligation, and yet was willing to endure the curse for 
transgressors ; so that by his substitution the honour of God 
should be secured in the sinner's redemption, and by one act 
the obedience and blessedness of man be completed. This 
marvellous conjunction, which met and was manifested in the 
mission and work of Jesus Christ on earth, sheds glory and 
grace around the throne of God, and adds lustre to the law of 
human obedience. It gathers into the morality of the gospel 
at once whatever is honouring to God and beneficial to man ; 
all that can exalt Jehovah's character, and secure the creature's 
homage. 

Nor is this all. The character into which that law forms 
the believer, presents a combination of perfect eoc cell ence ; and 
in this is not the superiority of the gospel system apparent ? 
Whether you study the law of Christian obedience in its ab- 
stract principles or its daily practice, the result will be the 
same. It has no occasion to shrink from comparison or to 
avoid inspection. Christianity is a fair and open system. It 
holds forth in the announcement of its law, and the life of its 
Author, the revelation of all excellence. Every diversity of 



112 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITT. 

grace meets in its spirit, and is embodied in its experience. 
All that is lovely and attractive in goodness, or beautiful in 
holiness, or sublime in genuine heroism, unites in its nature 
and invites you to share it. There is nothing awanting that 
can awaken your admiration — nothing redundant that you 
could wish to take away from it. It forms the ideal of good, 
and realizes the dream of human perfectibility. 

It is true that amidst the multitude of strange objections 
which have been urged against Christianity, not the least is 
the allegation that, in its morality, it neglects to inculcate 
patriotism, friendship, and valour. 

If by these terms be meant what heathen moralists under- 
stood, a regard for country that absorbed in it the welfare of 
the race, and swallowed up the rights and liberties of man- 
kind, to satiate its guilty passion; — a minor aiFection too 
cold for love, and founded on reciprocal selfishness ; — and an 
instinct of brute force which consisted only in fearlessness, 
and thirsted for blood ; then Christianity declined to insert 
these names in the list of her virtues, because she abhorred 
their guilty spirit. The perfection of Christianity demanded 
this exclusion, and we see in the very omission its discri- 
minating strictness. But if by patriotism be meant an 
enlightened regard to tbe claims of country and home, then 
Christianity adopts and shelters this virtue under the 
wider grace of philanthrophy. If again friendship signify 
the affection of congenial spirits, and sanctified natures, then 
it also is embraced within the zone of the gospel graces under 
the fairer name of love. Finally, if valour can be dignified 
with the spirit of virtue, and take the better appellation of a 
holy heroism, it also may be enclosed within the covenant of 
Christian morality, to shine as in an apostle's zeal, or gain a 
martyr's crown. The wisdom of the Christian code is seen 
in the selection of its graces ; and we admire it equally for 
what it omits and retains. The circle of its excellence is com- 
plete ; to add to its laws would be to overload its abundance ; 
to diminish its details would impair its perfect grace. It could 
not better be otherwise than its sinless author bequeathed it 
to us ; and we are satisfied to discover that the law of liberty 
which Christianity reveals for man's obedience is s& perfect as 
to brook no rival, alike in the dignity to which it exalts, the 



MORALITY OF THE XEW TESTAMENT. 1 13 

peace which it imparts, the moral loveliness which it realizes, 
and the endless glorj to which it conducts and assimilates all 
that submit to its authority, and are forDied into its full- 
grown excellence. 

III. The superiority of the gospel morality to all human 
systems farther appears in the unrivalled henignity of its 
spirit ; and this has respect to the disposition or temper of 
virtue. The perfection of all rule consists in the rare union 
of preserving its authority paramount and inviolate, while it 
secures the entire homage and affection of the subject. It is 
easy to construct a system of arbitrary law which shall com- 
pel subjection, if it can only be applied : but as, in civil life, 
all despotism is dangerous, because, by refusing to win the 
people's affection, it provokes their rebellion and revenge, — 
so, in moral administration, any code is radically defective, 
however excellent its rules, which does not captivate the 
human heart, while it commands the life ; and reigns in the 
willing acquiescence of conscience, as well as in the controul 
of the outward conduct. Men, for the most part, are go- 
verned, in morality, less by the constraints of an artificial 
law of life, than by the secret and previously formed disposi- 
tions of their natures. It is seldom that they awake from 
the uniform course which previous tastes and habits incline 
them to follow, to take a deliberate survey of any new law 
which invites them to deviate from previous predilections 
and practices. If, therefore, you would govern men by any 
system of moral rule, you must give it power to reach to the 
formation of their tastes and affections ; these are the great 
springs from which human actions fiow, and you become the 
masters of human morality only, when you have subdued and 
sanctified the stubborn insubordination and rebelliousness of 
the human heart. 

The systems of morality which have been created or con- 
structed by men, have uniformly and entirely failed to pro- 
vide for this grand and essential attainment. However 
consistent and complete their rules for the government of 
human life might seem, they contained within them no 
attractive influence to recommend them to human regard. 
While, on the one hand, they had no sanctions sufficient to 
enforce their authority, they contained, on the other, no 

NO. VIII. 



114 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

power to subdue opposition — to arrest regardlessness, or to 
melt and to master the human will ; and thus, the riotous 
passions of the human heart, which anticipate the slow de- 
ductions, of reason, by their strong impulses, and rise in 
rebellion against the restraints of all strict rules, have 
mocked at the cold and abstract morality of the schools ; and 
the highest efforts of philosophical wisdom have fallen power- 
less upon hearts that were proof against their speculations ; 
like a moonbeam falling upon an iceberg, which sheds no 
ray of genial warmth, or wakes one return of genuine pro- 
ductiveness. 

In this respect the benignant morality of the gosj)el shines 
in contrast with all the defective systems of men. Its 
peculiar and expressive kindness carries with it a power 
which can melt all malignity — disarm all opposition — and con- 
quer and carry captive the human heart, so as to transform 
it into entire and willing conformity to its own blessed re- 
quirements. 

This benignant power of Christian morality — unshared by 
any other system — appears at first sight in the missioji of 
the Master who proclaims its law. The appearance of Jesus 
Christ in our world is avowedly — according to Scripture 
testimony — a divine ambassage of mercy. He came, in the 
name of the lawgiver, to deal with a race who had violated 
his law, and thrown off their allegiance. In this mission, it 
devolved on him, alike to avenge the offence, and to recover 
the homage of the alienated offenders. And how was this 
accomplished ? Xot, as we might suppose, by wreaking 
vengeance on transgressors, and laying waste the scene of 
their rebellion. Xo ! but by proclaiming a complete and 
entire amnesty from the offended majesty of heaven to re- 
bellious sinners ; — by the lawgiver himself taking the trans- 
gressor's place, and enduring the transgressor's punishment, 
that, on the ground of his own perfect fulfilment of that law, 
he might offer a free and perfect remission of all offences to 
mankind at large. This is precisely the gospel message, and 
the peculiar charm of its morality ; and whatever unbelievers 
may say of the truth of this system, they must at least admit, 
that it renders the rule of duty pre-eminently attractive — 
that it speaks home irresistibly to our hearts, and constrains 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 1 1 5 

US to obedience by obligations the most affecting and impera- 
tive that could secure the convictions or the love of an intelli- 
gent and moral being. Thus Christianity claims supremacy 
among all other schools of morality, not only in revealing a 
perfect law as the rule of life, but also in discovering a 
divine and gracious Mediator, who, by his own obedience 
unto death, has at once asserted the inviolable claims of that 
law, and secured — if anything can secure — the gratitude and 
love and willing homage of human hearts to all its precepts. 

This attractive power in gospel morality still farther 
appears, if you consider the original excellence on which its 
precepts are formed. The rule of Christian life is no ex- 
pression of merely arbitrary authority by its author. It has 
taken its rise entirely in divine love, and could not possibly 
have been otherwise, if we were to be happy. It has only 
consulted our real good in every enactment, and of each of 
its precepts we have to say, " its commandments are not 
grievous. '^ This fully appears in its golden rule, " All 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do 
ye even so unto them,'' which makes our own real happiness 
the basis of our behaviour to other men, and regulates our 
conduct towards our fellows, by an enlightened and adjust- 
ing self-love. But it is still more apparent if you mark, 
that the law which it reveals for man's obedience is an exact 
transcript of the nature of the God who proclaims it, and is 
as if God should say, '* whatsoever I myself am in excellence 
or blessedness, my only will is that man — as far as creature 
can match the infinite Creator — should be like me." In this 
remarkable condescension and grace lies the matchless attrac- 
tion of gospel morality. 

It might belon;2^ to other systems, indeed, occasionally to 
exalt a deceased king or hero to a place among their immortal 
gods. But while this, at the best, was a very equivocal 
honour, seeing the character of their gods was by no means 
unexceptionable, and it was a distinction also remarkably ex- 
clusive, being reserved only for those who had obtained the 
highest honours of earth, — it also seems never to have entered 
into these systems that man should rise, by the fulfilment of 
his Creator's will, into the possession of bis Creator's image. 
This is an exclusive peculiarity of the gospel, which invites 



116 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

all men to be partakers of the divine nature, and is prepared 
on the model of its perfect law to form us into the full-orbed 
and everlasting resemblance of its all-perfect God. Could 
infinite kindness devise for man a richer distinction, or invest 
the path of duty with greater attractions ? Surely it were 
enough to fire the ambition of the dullest nature to active 
obedience, to learn that, whatever of good man can reach, what- 
ever of God can live out of himself, and lie in the human 
heart, may be found in the fulfilment of that will which forms 
man into the reflection of the glory of the God that made him. 
And yet it has been a question among moralists, whether 
the rule of morality originates in the sovereign will of God, 
or is founded on the nature of things. It might be a preli- 
minary question with such casuists, whether the will of God 
and the nature of things could ever cease to be the same. If 
there be any significance in their inquiry, what is it but to 
ask, whether the will of God be arbitrary and changeable. It 
is sufficient answer in such a case to say, that God, in consis- 
tency with himself, could not command us to hate him, or to 
love what is essentially vicious and abominable ; therefore we 
conclude, that if the gospel law of obedience had been any 
thing else than it is, it must have been less perfect ; and we 
are fully constrained to its obedience by its entire adaptation 
to the complete and eternal well-being of man. 

The attractive power of gospel morality is still further ap- 
parent in the remarkable benignity of temper and spirit which 
it breathes and inculcates. Unlike the moralists of the schools, 
its author — himself the perfect model of purest love — incul- 
cates a law of universal benevolence. The substance and the 
sum of all his preaching, and all his precepts, were, — " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neigh- 
bour as thyself.'' This spirit of complacency toward God, and 
of kindness toward the race, enlarges in the Saviour's plea 
into loftiest distinction, until it interw^eaves itself with all the 
relations of life, reigns in benignant beauty in the tastes and 
temper of the soul, and forms " the fulfilling of his law." 
Where others enjoin resentment of injuries and a spirit of re- 
venge, Jesus Christ commands us " to love our enemies, to do 
good to those that hate us, and to pray for those that de- 
spitefully use, and persecute us.'' In this lies a significant 



MORA.LITY OF THE XEW TESTAMENT. 117 

charm of Christian morality. Under its benignant spirit sel- 
fishness becomes subdued, and wrath is hushed to rest ; it dis- 
arms malignity in its wildest moods, and melts into tender- 
ness the maddest rage ; it stills the stormy passions of the 
human heart into a holy calm, and transforms the demon 
spirit of malice and revenge into world-blessing philanthropy ; 
it touches the key of all human sympathies, and tunes the dis- 
cordant spirits of men into holiest harmony; it scorns no con- 
dition, frowns on no interest, jars with no law, while it walks 
forth into the world with a spirit of universal charity, to undo 
every burden, and to break every yoke ; as it seeks to form 
man into a covenant of everlasting brotherhood, and offers to 
convert the earth into one wide sanctuary of unbroken peace. 
The world may profess to smile at the defenceless meekness of 
Christian morality, and scorn the tame and truculent spirit 
that can stoop to any wrong without resentment or revenge, 
but that mild and gentle spirit, evoked by its great Author, 
has struck a chord that shall vibrate throughout the universe ; 
its key-note shall be caught up by human hearts, until it swell 
into a universal chorus, and the world shall realize, while it 
repeats the angelic strain, — ^' Glory to God in the highest, on 
earth peace, good will to men." 

IV. The superiority of the gospel to human systems is 
apparent in its model and examples of morality ; and this has 
respect to the reality and practice of virtue. The gospel 
morality is not solely distinguished in the revelation of a per- 
fect law, it also embodies and realizes all its abstract precepts 
in the spotless life and character of its author, Jesus Christ 
becomes thus at once the High Priest and example of Chris- 
tians, the master who expounds the law of obedience, and the 
servant who fulfils it. It is a striking characteristic thus of 
Xew Testament morality, that it at once commands and ac- 
complishes all duty in the person of its author ; that it invites 
to no obligation which the Master has not borne, and subjects 
to no suffering which he has not experienced. This is a 
standing proof alike of the excellence of the law, and the at- 
tainableness of its obedience. Nothing could more fully un- 
fold its worth than the fact, that the Master stooped to fulfil 
it, and it takes away all excuse from our disinclination to 
duty when the Master stands before us — the perfect pattern 



118 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of compliance, the living model for imitation. And ought it 
not to strengthen the claims of Christ to our obedience, that 
he has gone the entire road before us, and that he comes back 
by his Spirit to bear every believer company in the journey, 
and to sustain him in all his struggles, by the benefit of his 
experience ? It is impossible for us to ]Dlace ourselves under 
any influence so ennobling as the presence and example of 
Christ. There is such condescension in his dignity, such 
tenderness in his sympathy, so complete imitableness in all 
his excellence, as to give to piety its highest impulse and 
richest attraction. Human nature becomes exalted in his 
person ; and under his guiding care, we rise above our natural 
level to man's highest estate of holiness. What difficulty is 
not overcome in his presence, what sorrow cannot his rich 
compassion alleviate — all blessings are secured and enjoyed 
in his rich and abiding love. We are called forth in that 
singular companionship to feel a kindred elevation of charac- 
ter with him, and in following his footsteps we are led forth, 
step by step, to the very confines of spiritual perfection. 
This, after all, is the true secret of all gospel morality. 
Scripture associates all real personal improvement with the 
knowledge, and love, and imitation of Jesus Christ. It calls 
it a " putting on of the Lord Jesus,'' — " a walking in him,'' 
— a possession of his spirit, and a wearing of his image. To 
this all the aspirations of gospel morality tend, and on him 
they -G.X ; nor can this earth offer you or me any thing more 
truly excellent or glorious than to pass on through the expe- 
rience of life in intimate fellowship with him, that we may be 
admitted beyond death to be partakers of his glory. 

I need not remind you that this feature of the case is so 
peculiarly, so entirely Christian, that human systems of all 
shades have nothing similar, nothing akin to it. The best of 
heathen moralists have mourned, that ever as their systems 
rose towards perfection, they were exalted beyond their reach. 
Their principles had no living power in them to reduce them 
to practice, and they lacked all the force of reality. Or, if 
they brought their abstractions dov/n into close approxima- 
tion with the living world around them, there was no room 
within their narrow limits for virtue to grow. It pined and 
sickened under its degrading confinement, until the choicest 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 119 

scenes of their boasted morality became barren of all good, 
and abundant only in the production of crime and wicked- 
ness. 

If we turn also to the boasted powers of infidelity, we find 
that its fields were never rich in great examples of virtue. 
Its best characters, for the most part, have not furnished an 
unexceptionable commentary on their own principles ; and 
while many men of fair morality have been found among their 
circle, they have generally rather been negations of evil, than 
positive examples of good ; so that it might be matter of fair 
and honest question, whether that excellence was formed by 
the native tendency of their principles, or retained in spite of 
them. And is there any in aU the circle whom they would 
be willing to put forth as the high priest of their profession, 
and soberly place in comparison with the sinless excellence of 
the Christian's Saviour ? 

It is not easy to find a field in which infidelity has had an 
opportunity to display the native effects of its principles, on a 
large scale. And yet in afifirming that it is unfavourable to 
the production of the higher models of virtue, we might appeal 
to facts. We should be sorry indeed to misrepresent or re- 
proach those who differ from us ; but if we turn to France dur- 
ing the volcanic eruptions of recent times, when the disciples 
of unbelief were for a season at least ascendant, where are we 
to look for their decisive trophies of moral greatness ? The 
opportunity was favourable for the display of any attractive 
and beneficial virtues of infidelity ; but we fear that few abet- 
tors of unbelief would be willing to abide by such an arbitra- 
ment, or to rest their claims to the respect and admiration of 
the world on the conduct of their leaders during that crisis. 

But the case for Christianity in this department is not yet 
complete. It abounds with bevautiful examples — less perfects 
indeed than its spotless pattern — but still shining with faith- 
ful, although inferior lustre. The gospel is rich in illustrious 
names ; it comes down consecrated with the- triumph of all 
past ages ; its trophies are strewed thick over all the fields of 
true renown. Whatever is great in achievement, or admirable 
in excellence, or attractive in example, belongs to Christianity, 
and has been reared under its influence. Where are we to 
look for the genuine benefactors and friends of the race, if not 



120 EVIDENCES OF CHUISTIANITY. 

to the fostering genius of tlie gospel? The spirit of heathen- 
ism never owned their existence, and infidelity confessedly has 
no principles to produce or sustain these nobler virtues. It 
has ever been found that wherever a pure Christianity flou- 
rished, arts and science have prospered under her guardian- 
ship, and followed in her train. The place of her abode has 
ever been the birth-place and refuge of freedom, and men, as 
they drank into her spirit, have kindled into holy patriotism, 
or enlarged into philanthropy. We think of such names as 
Howard, or Wilberforce, or Fry, which stir a thousand asso- 
ciations of benefaction and blessing to the race ; and we are 
compelled to conclude that human systems of morality never 
revealed such excellence, because their principles were inade- 
quate to conceive so great virtues, and impotent to produce 
them ; so that in the field of facts, Christianity stands supreme 
amid all rivals, and reveals in ripe results the decisive proofs 
of her practical virtues and superior morality. 

1 am aware that the enemies of Christianity point to the 
defects and inconsistencies of professors, as a proof of an oppo- 
site conclusion. This objection shall j)robably meet us more 
fully at another part of this course. We may now venture to 
remark in reply to it, that Christianity, like every other good 
thing, has had its counterfeits, and a system can never be held 
responsible for those whom it repudiates and disowns — that 
exceptions can never invalidate the general rule, and that the 
great virtues which Christianity has reared are congenial with 
its spirit, but that the vices which sometimes are sheltered un- 
der its protection are unknown to its nature, and repulsive to 
all its laws. The question therefore is, what system is most 
favourable to the production and growth of virtue ? We leave 
facts to answer in defence of Christianity. If we look around us 
in vain to discover the existence of monstrous vices, ever com- 
mon where Christianity is unknown — if our homes are safe 
from violation, and our streets are unstained by blood — we can- 
owe it only to the presence, and the power, and the practical 
though partial working of a religion, which inscribes on all its 
lessons, ** Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.'' 

The conclusion to be briefly drawn from these illustrations 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 121 

is this. Christianity meets her opponents with a superior and 
perfect law of morality which they cannot match. She reveals 
in the life and character of Christ a perfect model of the mo- 
rality she enjoins, and this her enemies cannot imitate ; the 
lives of her sons everywhere reveal an excellence that by ene- 
mies is nowhere equalled ; therefore Christianity, on the 
strength of these facts, claims a respect, aye, and a preference 
over every other system, and demands a verdict in her favour 
from every friend of the race. 

Lastly, The Xew Testament morality is superior to the de- 
fective systems of men in the mo^^?;€s which it reveals, and this 
has respect to the power of virtue, alike in the production, and 
growth, and ultimate perfection of it. 

The last peculiarity whi^h we notice in the gospel system, as 
significant of its authority, is not the most remarkable. As 
if it were not enough to reveal a law of perfect virtue, and to 
exhibit in the life of its author a perfect realization of the 
sinless perfection it enjoins ; it also, by a special arrangement, 
provides that the humblest believer in Christ shall be formed, 
in conformity with that law, into the perfect likeness of that 
Saviour. So soon as the truth of the gospel is received into 
any heart, a process begins there, which, by the power of God, 
must result in the entire subjugation of sin, and its complete 
and abiding holiness. Born from above, the Christian cannot 
be at ease till he reach '* the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of a perfect m.an in Christ." The law of God becomes 
endeared to his renewed nature, as the transcript of his ulti- 
mate excellence ; and the image of Christ is glorious, as the 
goal at which he is to arrive, and the pattern after which he 
is to be fashioned. Life is spent in pressing to that mark ; 
death surprises him panting after the Saviour's image ; then 
is wiped out the last stain from his nature, and he is ushered 
a " spirit made perfect" into the kingdom of glory. 

If it be asked what power the gospel morality possesses to 
realize these results, w^e answer, that it contains a perfect sys- 
tem of appliances for the purpose ; which, by the force of mo- 
tives, alike produce, and sustain, and perfect this virtue in 
believers' hearts. We can only glance at the following illus- 
trations of this statement. 

Does not the conscious love of Christ form the spirit and 



122 EVIDENCES OF CHIIISTIAXITY. 

impulse of highest morality in the heart of every believer 
While human systems disregard or deny a supreme power in 
their code of morality, or, at best, reveal God as a being of 
stern law and rigorous exaction, the Christian system clothes 
God with infinite attraction, and invests his law with all the 
charms of matchless grace. The love of Christ is the absorb- 
ent theme of the Christian's contemplation — it stands forth to 
his view matchless and immeasurable ; because it overleaped 
every obstacle to secure his redemption — it anticipated all re- 
pentance on his part, and descended to death for him, while 
yet an alien and an enemy — it wrought out and brought in a 
salvation, blood-bought and divine, without any co-operation 
on his part, and in the very face of his unworthiness — there- 
fore he cannot fail to love the God who has so loved him ; 
can the measure of his obedience ever be full, or can he ever 
do enough for tbat God who has done every thing for him ? 
There is no limit that ever can be set to that love which is a 
debtor to infinite grace ; and no length of service can ever be 
adequate to repay the blessings of a free and eternal salva- 
tion. This is the spring and impetus to all Christian virtue ; 
the love of Christ dissolves the enmity of the heart to God, 
and carries it captive to his will ; it binds the believer by ob- 
ligations of love that can never be relaxed ; it forms the in- 
centive to all duty, the mainspring of all devotion ; and the 
language of its life is, *' the love of Christ constraineth us to 
live not unto ourselves, but unto him who died for us." 

Besides, do not the promised agencif and aid of God's 
Spirit sustain and strengthen Christian virtue in the believer? 
The Christian goes not forth to spiritual warfare at his own 
charge. If we receive scriptural testimony, or can credit the 
conscious experience of saints, " it is God that worketh in him 
to will and to do of his good pleasure." This forms alike the 
security and strength of Christian morality. In conflict with 
sin, where God sustains the warfare, there can be no surren- 
der and no defeat. The battle in such case is never of uncer- 
tain issue ; it may stay its progress, or slacken its pace, or 
even receive a temporary check, but it is ever renewed, and 
ever finally successful. The heart that consciously relies on 
omnipotence can never be overcome, or satisfied with less than 
perfect excellence : amid many fears, and doubts, and occa- 



MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 123 

sivonal backslidings, ever as it looks at its resources, and feels 
wherein its great strength lies, it can say, " We are confident 
of this one thing, that he which hath begun the good work in 
you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." 

Finally, the confirmed and confident hope of another life 
of eternal awards serves to perfect the morality of the gospel 
in the Christian's nature. The systems of infidelity, by con- 
fining the idea of recompense to the present life, destroy the 
best safeguard of virtue. In this world the largest good may 
be often the most remote and least apparent ; so that present 
impulse and passion perpetually advise a deviation from recti- 
tude to secure temporary gratification. The idea of a world 
to come, where present inequalities shall be rectified, and 
righteous retribution or recompense shall be awarded to every 
individual, is the only true balancing power of genuine virtue. 
And it has been reserved for the gospel to reveal and to cer- 
tify this solemn truth. It enters into all Christian calcula- 
tions, and forms the culminating point of Christian progress : 
to that grand assize all present duty tends ; its awful scene 
fills the daily thoughts of the saint, and serves impressively 
to regulate his conduct. He " labours that he may be ac- 
cepted," and '^ not be ashamed before Christ at his coming.'' 
" He looks for the glorious appearance of the great God,'' 
" his loins are girded and his light burning." It must be im- 
possible that a soul habituated to such solemn thoughts, should 
not rise to highest excellence. The daily contemplation of the 
final judgment must frown down the disposition to sin in the 
Christian's nature, and incite him to holiest preparation for 
meeting with God. Till Christ come, the saint feels that every 
thing is incomplete ; and the strength of his piety and the 
purity of his life are manifest in his looking, and longing, 
and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, " when they 
that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of 
life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of dam- 
nation." 

We have thus brought our argument to its conclusion. If 
we have fairly considered our points, and certified their issues, 
we must be prepared to take up the strong position, that the 
morality of the new Testament, alike in its principle and rule, 
its spirit and practice, examples and motives, stands not only 



124 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

superior but supreme amidst all other systems ; that in this 
lies one sure evidence of its divine authority, and that its 
claim is therefore absolute, while it challenges the homage and 
obedience of every human heart. 

Let it not be said that the religion of the gospel, which 
has baffled the opposition of all past ages, and proved its 
superiority to every other system which would dispute its 
claims, is now to be superseded and dismissed by some fu- 
ture system of prospective good. We must pause for the 
appearance of the substitute, and prove its pretensions ere 
we part from the approved verities of the gospel of Christ. 
We cannot give up certainty for assertions, or resign bles- 
sed realities for only flattering promises. Have these ideal 
dreamers, who are to set aside the gospel as an effete and 
inferior system, any credentials to certify their commis- 
sion ? Can they point us to a more perfect law, or reveal 
a God of richer excellence, or throw additional light on hu- 
man destinies ? Until they fortify assurance by facts, and 
give us some faint foretaste of their superior creed, " we are 
not to be moved away from the foundation of our faith, which 
is Christ in us the hope of glory." Some men speak of the 
removal of Christianity, as if it were a matter of light and 
trivial interest. Do they know what they seek ? Take away 
the gospel ! and the world falls back without alleviation or 
recovery into the gloom of barbarous heathenism, or the mid- 
night gulph of the Atheist. Man sinks into the brute, or 
maddens into the demon. Wandering in a fatherless world, 
what has he to seek — without a God to care for, or a judgment 
to meet, what has he to fear ? Vice, set free from the survey 
of all conscience, overleaps the restraints of all law, and riots 
in licentious ferocity, that makes man a monster to his kind. 
Take away the gospel ! and home is no more. The domestic 
virtues which, the gospel rears depart along with it. You be- 
come indifferent to your offspring, and the wife of your bosom 
is estranged. Your sons rise to profligacy, and you rear your 
daughters for nameless disgrace. Hope withers in the human 
heart, and happiness departs from its only altars on earth. 
Take away the gospel ! and what is left in its room — earth 
only a scene of violence and crime — life not worth the con- 
tinuance ; and the grave, to which shuddering you look down 



MORALITY or THE NEW TESTAMENT. 1 2o 

as the final rest — the grave, a place of midnight gloom which 
brings no dawn to its darkness, and keeps its own terrible 
secrets. Take awav the gospel ! Xo ! Life, liberty, hajDpi- 
ness, are involved in its stay ; and still let it remain to us as 
it has ever been, the sanctuary of peace — the asylum of free- 
dom — the guardian and defence of all social and spiritual 
good ; and as we look forth from its blessed securities, let us 
say, " Esto perpetiia^ abide with us for ever." 



( 126 ) 



LECTURE VII. 

ON THE 

NECESSITY OF A DIYIXE EEYELATIOX. 

BY THE REV. ALEX. HAN>UY. 



^Iy theme of brief discourse this evening is, the necessity 
of a Divine revelation. 

Hitherto our reasoning in this series has been built up 
entirely of materials with which nature has furnished us ; 
meaning by nature, as we always do in this connection, not 
merely external, but internal nature, not merely the voice of 
the material universe, but also the voice of our consciousness. 
In affirming man's answerableness to a higher power, and in 
affirming his immortality, we affirmed propositions which, if 
they be true at all, are older than any revelation which we 
can suppose — original truths, simple to man's mind, native to 
his constitution, involved in his very archetype and idea. 
They are truths of natural religion, which no revelation can 
prove or disprove. A revelation may assert them, clear them 
of ambiguity, exhibit them in their fundamental and vital re- 
lations to other truths, and thus support them by a train of 
recondite and previously unconceived analogies, and enforce 
them by the sanctions of an imperious authority ; but their 
ultimate basis is the nature and constitution of things ; and 
to the nature and constitution of things, therefore, we have 
appealed. We are satisfied with the result. The attestations 
of nature are abundant and conclusive. 



NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 127 

But we must not forget the object of this series of lectures : 
it is to prove Christianity, a system which outreaches nature, 
which pretends to independent disclosures. Our past argu- 
mentation has not necessarily reached thus far. We have 
merely proved positions attested by nature and revelation in 
common. The mere natural religionist might as yet join issue 
with us. 

It does not follow that our ]Dast argumentation has had 
no bearing on our object. Revelation, as we shall see, 
settles itself down upon the basis, — fits itself into the frame 
of nature. It sanctions every oracle which nature utters, 
endorses every claim which nature makes, homologates 
every truth which nature proclaims : it came not to des- 
troy but to fulfil. And the proof of this is an important 
part of the evidence of revelation. If any book professing to 
be of divine authority contradict nature, it gives in that fact 
the proof that it is not divine. The religion of nature and 
the religion of a really divine revelation must be harmonious. 
They need not to be co-extensive, but they cannot contradict 
each other. They are the projections of the same unalterable 
mind : God cannot contradict himself. The religious system 
whose speculations require that it should contradict nature, 
proves itself to be false ; and there is a presumption that the 
religious system which assumes the truth of all that nature 
teaches, which builds itself up upon nature, is true. So far as 
directly proving the truth of revelation is concerned, our 
work has yet been underground ; but it has been fundamental. 
The column does not rise upon the view, at once with stabi- 
lity and grace, except there be first the unim posing and ap- 
parently superfluous drudgery of underground building. 

This evening our argument presses on in the line of our ulti- 
mate object. Former lectures have shown no reason why, in 
the department of moral and religious truth, we should have 
any other instructor than nature ; in this lecture we proceed 
to show that a divine revelation, appropriately evidenced, was 
necessary to meet the wants, and to suit the condition of the 
race. 

The phrase " divine revelation" is, I believe, sufiiciently 
understood. It expresses the idea of a supernatural intima- 
tion of the divine will. By the wise constitution of things 



128 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITT. 

around us, and by the constitution of our own nature, certain 
great truths of religion are indicated. Revelation is supposed 
to communicate truths which are not communicable through 
the medium of nature, which could never be reached by the 
aspirations, or detected by the assiduities of reason, which 
are positive, which are superinduced upon the human con- 
stitution, and, therefore, not pointed to by its indicators ; 
or it is supposed to attest, with the voice of authority, 
truths which already lie in the bosom of nature, but either 
which man is prone to misinterpret, or whose evidences he is 
prone to overlook. Revelation does not necessarily confine 
itself to the publication of new truths, though this is doubtless 
its leading design ; but it takes under its ample shield truths 
which have independent evidence, but which it is either neces- 
sary to notice, in order to the effective development of its own 
disclosures, or which it notices to add to their evidence the 
emphasis of its authority. Still, in both cases, the compen- 
dious definition of revelation is ^* a supernatural intimation of 
the divine will." 

I. Before we can proceed to evolve any positive argument, 
on the necessity of a divine revelation, we must deal with a 
prejudice which in modern times has been raised against the 
very idea of revelation, as though in the nature of the case 
there were such presumptions against it as to render it impro- 
bable, or even such emphatic considerations as to stamp it 
with, absurdity. In this first section of our discourse, we bring 
these considerations to the test of common reason. 

Ifc is said *' reason is man's guide, and he needs no other ;" 
therefore a divine revelation is improbable. 

Let it be understood that I have no sympathy with those 
who unthinkingly decry reason, and that I have even no serious 
objection to urge against the affirmation that reason is man's 
guide, and that he needs no other. But it is clear that those 
who urge this as an objection against a divine revelation, 
must attach to the words, ''Reason is man's guide," a meaning 
which does not necessarily belong to them. They must, if 
their objection is to have any point, mean that reason is, in 
such a sense, man's guide that it needs no informant, no direc- 
tion, no guide-posts, no light. Is this, then, the character of 
reason ? I hesitate not to say that it rejects such equivocal 



NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 129 

honours. Before reason can guide man to any safe result, it 
must itself be instructed and informed bj truth. It demands 
light ; it craves information. The eye of man is finely con- 
structed for the purpose of vision, but it needs light ere the 
picture of any object can be defined upon its retina. The ear 
of man is finely constructed for the purpose of hearing, but it 
needs an atmosphere ere even the most violent concussion can 
beat its intimation upon the tympanum. Light is necessary 
to the vision of the eye ; atmosphere to the hearing of the ear. 
"All things are double, one against another." Reason is 
not more independent than the eye ; not more independent 
than the ear. It guides man, but it must be informed of the 
way in which it has to guide him. A pillar of light must 
move before it. Project it, on its first creation, into a void 
where no stimulating discovery unfolds itself before it, where 
no provoking problem casts itself in its way, where it dwells 
in a dreary and unvisited solitariness, will it then, by draw- 
ing upon some native well-spring of thought and intelligence, 
ascend far up the unsealed heights, or descend far down into 
the unfathomed depths of truth? I trow not ; no more than 
the eye of man would see in the thick darkness of a night 
which no day has ever disturbed ; or than the ear of man would 
hear in the void spaces in which.no atmosphere has been hung. 
There is no spring of independent thought in reason ; if 
there were, it would be God. Even innate ideas have been 
disproved of it. All truth emanates from the Creating Mind. 
The highest function of reason is that of the interpreter. It 
does not originate truth, it is only informed of it. It has 
made great attainments, but it has been instructed by nature. 
In the darkest cranny into which it has pushed its researches, 
it has been guided by a light of the Creator's kindling. It 
has found an informant and educator in every rock, and tree, 
and star, and in every faculty and adaptation of its material 
tenement. Xo one pretends that these instructors have over- 
borne reason ; all observe that they have raised and expanded 
it. No one pretends that these instructors have sought to 
limit reason's empire over man ; all observe that they have 
confirmed and extended it. Xow revelation takes rank as an 
instructor of reason ; it brings to it messages pregnant with 
strange truth, but supported by fitting evidence. It does 

NO. IX. 



130 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

not prostrate reason. It does not decry its most fearless exer- 
cise. It seeks no blind submission. With a jDrostrated reason 
it cannot deal. The homage which it claims is a "reasonable 
service." On what ground, then, is it affirmed that revelation 
interferes with the province of reason in guiding man ? Sirs, 
it interferes not. As well might you say that your hand, 
which by its wondrous mechanism, so fitted to the purposes 
to which you naturally apply it, informs you of a designing 
Creator, interferes with your reason in communicating such 
information, as that revelation interferes which informs you 
of that Creator's character, and purposes. Revelation acknow- 
ledges the empire of reason over man, and it would communi- 
cate to it the information which is necessary to secure the 
continuance, and to maintain the effectiveness of its sway. 
Such being the pretension of revelation, we can see no pre- 
sumption against it, much less any absurdity in it. If reason, 
by its very nature, requires instructors, if it has them as a 
matter of fact, there can be no presumption against the sup- 
position of another instructor being added to the number. If 
reason, by its very nature requires light, and if, as a matter 
of fact, fountains of light have been unsealed for its guidance, 
there can be no presumption against the supposition of another 
fountain being unsealed. If reason's other recognised in- 
structors do not interfere with its province in ruling man, on 
what ground is it assumed that revelation would interfere? 
This objection is groundless. 

But it is said that revelation is improbable because it deals 
with subjects which lie far beyond the proper province of 
reason. 

Were this allegation proved — that the disclosures of divine 
revelation lie beyond the proper province of reason^ I should 
admit that the fact not only renders revelation improbable 
but absurd. This language has been too often held, even by 
Christian writers, and abortive efforts have been made to bring 
harmony out of the contradiction. It has been said, for instance, 
that the truths of revelation come not within the province of 
reason but of faith ; thus raising faith to the novel elevation of 
an independent faculty. But it is an unwarranted distinction. 
Faith itself is but the animated consent of reason to certain 
truths which present themselves to it, supported by overbear- 



NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 13 1 

iiig evidence. Do the discoveries of divine revelation, then, 
lie bevond the proper province of reason ? No, sirs. The 
evidence that thej do not is to he found in the fact, that rea- 
son is capable of receiving these discoveries, of being con- 
vinced by their evidence, and of shaping its course according 
to their dictate, which could never be the case if they lay be- 
yond its proper province. Indeed, the province of reason is 
often spoken of most unintelligibly. Its province is the 
investigation of truth, and its theatre is v^ide as the uni- 
verse. It embraces all truth. Reason in man is a growing 
and expanding capacity of intellection, and the wide universe 
is its theatre of expatiation. It can expand to every thing 
that does not stretch into infinitude, it can come to compre- 
hend every thing but God. There is no truth which the highest 
created mind has received, which human reason cannot come 
to receive. It can follow in tlie track of archangelic mind. 
In fulfilling its course it will rise to the present eminences, 
and explore the present haunts, and triumph in the present 
investigations of Cherubim and Seraphim. Angelic reason 
expatiates now over a wider field, and has reached an im- 
menser intelligence; but this is only precedence of time. 
Created reason is all of one family and order of faculty ; and 
it can be ultimately baffled only in an attempt to comprehend 
the infinite. I repeat, the province of reason is to investigate 
truth, to examine the evidences by which it is supported, and 
its theatre of operation is the universe. Should the objector 
say, that he means simply that revelation is improbable be- 
cause its disclosures point to fields which lie beyond the range 
of reason's direct research, his objection acquires intelligibility, 
but it dwindles in the process into wonderful insignificance. 
For, it is surely not improbable that beyond the horizon 
which bounds our present view, in the region which is cur- 
tained off from our immediate investigation, there is much 
which we do not knov/. No one supposes that the energies of 
creative power, or the wide complication of providence, expend 
themselves upon this spot, or upon the regions which may be 
observed from it. Every intelligent enquirer, on the con- 
trary, feels that his inquiries are abruptly terminated, not by 
the exhaustion of subjects of inquiry, but by the lowness of 
his stand -point ; that as a man who looks upon the sky from 



132 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

some deep excavation can observe only upon the limited circle 
immediately above him, whilst the great hemisphere is cut off 
from his view, — so the most fearless inquirer and persevering 
student is excluded by a necessity of his stand-point, from 
fields of investigation compared with whose extent, the field of 
our direct observation here is but a point. It can be no pre- 
sumption, therefore, against a divine revelation, that it deals 
with subjects which lie beyond the range of our present obser- 
vation. We might rather, before any investigation on the 
subject, conclude that this would be one of its most satisfactory 
attestations ; for, surely, it would be a stronger objection 
against any divine revelation, that it told us nothing which 
we did not know before, than that it dealt with matters 
which we had no means of knowing. And when we remem- 
ber that all truth is interpenetrating ; that it is one web of 
mystic net-work, encircling the universe ; that it reaches from 
world to world, binding economy to economy; that the truth 
w^hich yields its secret up to our direct investigations here, 
connects itself with the stupenduous whole without break or 
discontinuance ; that the entire august circle is the predestined 
object of our reverent study during the untold ages of our 
progression ; and that a general knowledge of the truth which 
lies immediately without the circle of our own proper research, 
is necessary to the solution of many of the problems which 
stun and confound us here, — we shall notonly see that the idea 
of revelation is maligned by this objection, but that that idea 
appears under the form of a high moral probability. 

Bat the ground is changed. It is objected that a divine 
revelation is a deviation from the ordinary and appointed 
course of things, and is therefore in a high degree improbable. 
This objection, constantly iterated against miracles, is 
brought to bear against the idea of a revelation as being in 
its very nature miraculous, a suspension of ordinary laws, a 
deviation from an ordinary course. The plausibility of this 
objection has won for it a w^ondrous popularity ; but its 
plausibility is not to my mind so striking as its fallaciousness. 
It assumes that revelation — supernatural intimation of the 
divine will — is a deviation from the ordinary course of things, 
and that, as such deviation is improbable under the govern- 
ment of an all-wise Eeing. revelation is improbable. Here 



NECESSITY OF A DIVIXE REVELATIOX. 133 

we must examine a little more closelj both the premiss and 
the conclusion. 

Let it be observed, that the real question here is not one 
which respects the ordinary course of things in general, but 
one which respects the ordinary course in communicating 
moral and religious intelligence to a race. We have nothing 
to do, for instance, with the ordinary course of nature in com- 
municating scientific knowledge. It may be demonstrated 
that the ordinary course of nature in communicating scientific 
knowledge to a man is that he should exert his reason in ob- 
serving, examining, comparing, in the wide world around him : 
that he should take his chisels, hammers, lenses, crucibles, and 
scales, and, running up the mountains, exploring the valleys, 
sweeping over the fields of the sky, and burrowing in the 
bowels of the earth, should extort from nature her most che- 
rished secrets. And, this being the regular course of nature 
in communicating scientific knowledge, we should think any 
story improbable which told of a divine revelation, sent to 
men, exhibiting an arrangement of the geological epochs of 
the earth, or descanting upon chemical combinations. Such 
a departure from the ordinary course of things in this depart- 
ment might stun us into incredulity. But it ought not to place 
under suspicion any professed revelation sent for the purpose 
of instructing men in the department of moral and religious 
truth ; for the ordinary course in this department may, for 
any thing we know to the contrary, be entirely different ; its 
claims may be so urgent and transcending, or at least so pecu- 
liar in their character, as to demand a widely different style 
of communication. There is no reason to believe that the or- 
dinary course of nature is the same in everj^ department : and 
it is surely not improbable that, religious truth being the 
clamant need of every intelligent human soul, it may be com- 
municated in a way peculiar to itself — have an ordinary 
course different from other science. The real question, then, 
to the exclusion of every other, is, what is the ordinary course 
in communicating moral and religious truth to a race of intel- 
ligent creatures ? How is this to be determined ? By what 
means shall we attain to a knowledge of the ordinary course ? 
This immense task we throw upon the objector. He must 
show us the ordinary course before he can convince us that 



I 34 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

revelation is a departure from it. But by what stupendous 
induction will he make this discovery ? According to the re- 
quirements of his objection, he would need another world on 
which to make his observations — another system of worlds. 
What an immense intellip^ence the wielder of such an objec- 
tion must pretend to ! Failing such intelligence, we might 
fairly set his objection aside ; for in strictness it has no 
ground to rest upon. It cannot establish its premiss. It fails 
to shew what is the ordinary course in communicating reli- 
gious knovfledge, and must consequently fail in proving that 
direct divine revelation is a departure from it. If it be said 
we have our own race on which to make our observations, and 
that a divine revelation is a deviation from the ordinary 
course of things here, you cannot fail to see that this is taking 
for granted the very thing to be proved. The process of the 
objection is vicious, for it sets out with what the logician calls 
a petitio principii — a begging of the question at issue. But, 
whilst this is valueless as an argument, we may examine its 
plausibility as an assertion. It is asserted that the communi- 
cation of a divine revelation is a departure from the ordinary 
course of nature in this world. Now, there are different cir- 
cumstances in which we might conceive of a divine revelation 
as communicated. It might be communicated either at the 
beginning of the race's existence, or at some point in the 
course of its existence distant from the beginning. Let the 
case be supposed, then, of a divine revelation communicated 
to the race, immediately on its creation. It surely cannot be 
said that such a procedure would be a departure from the or- 
dinary course. There is as yet no ordinary course to depart 
from. Almighty power has just been exerted in creating 
man, and placing him in his appointed theatre of existence. 
What analogy would be falsified should the creating mind 
resolve to communicate directly a knowledge of moral and re- 
ligious truth to his creature ? There is no analogy to falsify. 
The course of things is only taking its rise. And should 
it take its rise in a revelation (which is at least con- 
ceivable), then the idea of a supernatural communication 
of religious truth will not only be consistent with the course 
of things, but will be broadly impressed upon it. [It deserves 
a passing notice here that there is no evidence whatever that 



NECESSITY OF A DIVIXS REVELATION. 135 

religious truth was arrived at by man by any process of ratio- 
cination, in tbe first instance. Any evidence we have, apart 
from the peculiar character of Scripture testimony, seems to 
point to the directly opposite conclusion. The few rays of 
historical and traditional light which struggle through the 
darkness and distance of several milenniums, throwing a dim, 
uncertain, half- discovering greyness upon the men and habits 
of the first age, present primeval religion in an attitude which 
strongly suggests the idea that a revelation of the divine will 
had been made.] 

But, let the other case be supposed, that a divine revela- 
tion is communicated after the race is settled down into a re- 
gular course. It may be said that the throwing of a revela- 
tion in upon society, when it is thus settled, implies a deviation 
from the ordinary course, and is, therefore, improbable. 
Here you will observe we are driven from the limited defini- 
tion of the phrase, " ordinary course of things," for which we 
contended above, and have to try the probability of revelation 
by the ordinary course of things in general. The objection is 
plausible if we submit to this test; for revelation, even ac- 
cording to the showing of its friends, does not fall into what 
appears to be the ordinary course of things — does not, that is, 
give forth its dogmata from day to day according to fixed laws 
which may be anticipated in their operation. But it may fairly 
be questioned, whether the fact that a divine revelation is a 
departure from the ordinary course of things, in this broad 
and general sense of the phrase, is sufficient to render it im- 
probable ; for beyond and above this ordinary course, there 
may be a course which we shall call extraordinary, but which 
is equally with the ordinary course necessary to the complete- 
ness of the plan of moral government ; and direct divine reve- 
lation may be one of its prominent appliances. Let us ex- 
amine this phrase, " ordinary course of nature,'' that we may 
ascertain exactly what breadth of truth lurks in it. By '' course 
of nature,'' we mxean simply the plan of the universe in the 
course of fulfilment. We speak of the " ordinary course of 
nature " because that plan, in the general details which are 
open to our observation here, evolves itself according to fixed 
laws with whose workings we can become so familiar as to 
anticipate their general manifestations. We use the words 



136 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTI.VNITY. 

'^ anomalous " and "extraordinary" to express our idea of 
things which do not seem to fall into the ordinary course. 
But science has long ago led us to the conclusion, that the 
words " anomalous ^' and ** extraordinary," in the sense of de- 
parture from fixed order, have nothing corresponding to them 
in the universe. They are valueless words ; they only seem 
to cloak our ignorance from the view of our egotism. The 
" ordinary course of nature " is proved to he the operation of 
that minor order which regulates the things that lie within the 
scope of our immediate observation — the round of whose work- 
ing is so circumscribed that it is daily obtruding itself upon 
our notice. The things which we call '-extraordinary " and 
" anomalous " are proved to be the operations of a larger 
order, a wider economy, whose round of working is so im- 
mense, that it seldom obtrudes itself upon our notice. Things 
which we call extraordinary and anomalous are, notwithstand- 
ing their rare occurrence to our observation, as orderh', and 
regular, and as completely provided for in the original plan 
of the universe's administration, as the things .vhich are ordi- 
nary — the things which are of every-day occurrence. The 
time was when science, '' falsely so-called," propounded her 
laws of the material universe, and when the pseudo-scientific 
man advertised the world that in them was to be found the 
explanation of all the things '• which do appear;" but scarcely 
had he propounded his laws before some startling phenomenon 
crossed his path, scaring his sedateness or confounding his 
self-sufficiency. When he recovered from his stun, he called 
it an anomaly. But the truth has come out that no man is 
able to take such a comprehensive view of the material uni- 
verse in all its complexity of relation and movement as to be 
able to say what is its natural course in every particular, or as 
to be able to say of any particular phenomenon that it is ano- 
malous. The plan of the material universe, in all its width 
of range, in all its niceness of adaptation, in all its complexity 
of movement, in all its multiplicity of appliance, is patent to 
the view of him only who projected it. In his mind alone is 
the archetype — before his eye alone is the full embodiment. 
Our view is limited and sectional. But having, as our in- 
telligence widened, become aware of this, it supplies us with 
an invaluable principle to guide us in our researches, namely, 



NECESSITY or A DIYIXE REYELATIOX. 13" 

that the mere fact that a thing is extraordinary or anomalous, 
in our view, is no very strong probability against it ; seeing 
that, as matter of fact, many extraordinary things do occur in 
nature, and that the establishment of a philosophic improba- 
bility of their occurring cannot shake their evidence, or even 
cast upon it a damaging suspicion. The thing which seems 
anomalous comes to be proved to belong to a larger order with, 
which we have not become familiar. Now, this reasoning can 
be applied with all its force to the idea of a divine revelation. 
It may, in its unfoldings, be no part of the minor every-day 
orders of moral discipline in the universe, but it may be part 
of a larger order, to our view apparently extraordinary and 
anomalous, but ec[ually with the minor arrangements embraced 
in the original conception of moral administration. "We re-ex- 
hibit the argument in an illustration drawn from the pheno- 
mena of nature. We can conceive of a man even now so far 
removed from the contagion of science, as to know nothing of 
the astounding discoveries of modern astronomy, who merely 
looks upon the sky with all its train as *' a thing of beauty, 
ivliich is a joy for ever f yet, nightly noting its aspect with 
intense interest, and cultivating an exalting familiarity with 
its majestic routine — we can conceive of such an one as he strolls 
forth on some clear evening to make his simple observations, 
being stricken with horror when he sees bursting upon his 
view in a remote part of the sky a glaring body like some 
huge fire-missile hurled from the hand of an incensed God, or 
like the destructive projectile of some supernal volcano, with 
a track of fire behind it as though it kindled the heavens in 
its course. What tremor paralyzes him ! He deems it a vi- 
sitor unauthorised by the course. of nature. In his imagina- 
tion he sees it rushing on in an incendiary career through the 
most thickly-tenanted places of our peaceful firmxament. He 
fears that it may cross the path-way of the earth. Already 
he knows not but that that majestic train, which but an hour 
ago he regarded as an enkindled sky, may be composed of 
millions of worlds which, in its lawless and terrible vagrancy, 
it has warped from their orbits, and with which it is rushing 
down into the realms of chaos and dark night. Numberless 
speculations hurry through his mind in the hot succession of 
fever dreams. In all he assumes that this is a menacinor de- 



133 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

parture frora the course of nature, that the plan of the s"ky has 
"been broken in upon. Send to the bewildered and agitated 
man a tyro from your seminaries to quit his fears. He will 
tell him that this is a comet, that it is in the original plan, 
that its orbit, wild and erratic though it be, is traced out in 
the original chart of the astral universe, as distinctly as the 
modest route of our own moon, that learned men knew so well 
about it, that they told the hour in which it would appear, that 
that it would disappear again wdthout doing any further damage 
than it had already done to his head and to heads similarly 
circumstanced, and would return again after two hundred 
years; that, in short (if your youth could generalise a little), 
there is no such thing as anomaly or infringement upon plans 
in this universe. 

Ye that appeal to nature, do ye not hear nature's voice ? 
Have we not, in such extraordinary phenomena, an analogue 
by which to justify and illustrate the supposition of extraor- 
dinary disciplines and appliances in the course of the moral 
administration of the universe ? Have we not, in the fact that 
these phenomena of nature have been proved to belong to a 
larger order, which, in its width of sweep, does not come within 
our view, countenance to the supposition that extraordinary 
appliances of religious education, such as a direct divine reve- 
lation, may belong to a larger order of moral administration ? 
May not divine revelation, though it be no part of the ordi- 
nary, that is, of the every-day course of moral discipline, be 
part of the original plan for communicating moral and religious 
truth to the race, form part of a larger economy, which at 
distant intervals sheds the blessings of its disclosures upon 
man ? And, if it may be (and we have seen that nature fully 
justifies the supposition), then the mere fact of its being a de- 
parture from an every-day course is no argument against 
it. Like the comet which, after lengthened intervals, glares 
down upon the world, now inspiring terror, anon awak- 
ening curiosity, and again giving to the earnest student of 
nature a glimpse into new vastuesses and complexities in the 
stellar creation of which he had not conceived, revelation may, 
after lengthened intervals, scatter its blessings upon the race, 
spreading light, inspiring love and joy ; and, as the comet in its 
uncompanioned course, merely fulfils the original conception of 



NECESSITY OF A DIYIXE KLYELATIOX. 1 SD 

the starry heavens, revelation may, in its uncounter.anced sin- 
gularity, fulfil the conception of the moral administration of 
the universe. 

If to this general analogy we add the particular considera- 
tion, that in the government of a race such as the human race, 
with its powers of choice and its perilous capacity of disobe- 
dience, events may take a turn, and exigencies occur which 
shall call for a direct interposition of the Governor (and 
everything of this kind must be foreseen and provided for by 
an Omniscient Ruler in the plan of his administration), not 
only will the objection with which we have been dealing be- 
come insignificant, but a strong actual presumption w^ill be 
awakened, that a revelation w^ill rank as an appliance of the 
divine government in the course of its administration. 

The man who affirms, then, that a divine revelation is im- 
probable because it is a departure from the ordinary course of 
things, may, w^e think, be fairly told that he knows not what 
he says, nor whereof he affirms ; and, in general, we may as- 
sert that the considerations which we have combated (and they 
are the leading ones in use) are not sufficient to make a di- 
vine revelation improbable, mucli less to stamp it with ab- 
surdity. Other observations might have been made, but the 
positive branch of our argument now imjperiously claims our 
attention. The length to which these observations have ex- 
tended will render extreme brevity necessary in the important 
branch of the argument which is before us. Suggestion must 
suffice where full development would bave been desirable. 

II. The conclusive and natural way of following up this 
necessary preliminary argumentation would be to shew, by 
positive evidence, that we actually have a divine revelation 
in the standard Scriptures of the Christian religion. But this 
embraces a wide field of survey ; many lectures would be re- 
quired to conduct us over it. The task prescribed to me is 
preliminary : to shew that such a revelation was necessary. 
Some might not have thought it prudent to run into the perils 
of such an argument. It is confessedly difficult. It may fail 
in cogency. But I beg you to remember that the credit of the 
Christian Scriptures is not staked in it. Should the Lec- 
turer fail to shew that a divine revelation was necessary in the 
nature of the case, the failure will be amply atoned for by the 
overwhelming proof which other lecturers will ofifer, that it 



140 EVIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

has actually been made. There may be many things which 
are well- attested as facts, for which we may not have suffi- 
cient intelligence to prove that there was a previous necessity. 
The conviction of such necessity will in every case give pecu- 
liar force to the evidence of the fact ; but the evidence should 
not be regarded as in any way weakened by our inability to 
prove the necessity. An a priori argument of this kind is 
only meant to prepare the mind for the favourable considera- 
tion of the positive evidence — when it is concluded, the exa- 
mination of the positive evidence only commences. I have 
thought it proper to make these observations that you may 
understand precisely to what class the argument which I now 
conduct belongs, and that you may not form exaggerated ex- 
pectations as to its cogency. 

The necessity of a divine revelation, which I now affirm, 
has of course reference to the circumstances and condition of 
the human race as we find it. With the abstract question, 
whether a divine revelation would have been necessary had 
the race remained perfect, T do not deal. In the course of 
the argument, certain things as to man's circumstances and 
condition must be assumed. I do not burden my argument 
with unnecessary assumptions. The leading points are two. 
I mention them here, not because I mean to make an im- 
mediate argumentative use of them, but because they are 
points about w^hich we must be agreed, before we can proceed 
with the argument. 

I premise that I found these propositions not upon the 
testimony of the Scriptures : they are derived from observa- 
tion or affirmed as necessary. 

1. Man is in a state of imperfection as to moral character. 
No religionist or philosopher has ever called this in question. 
It is true of the race in general, and of every individual in 
particular. It has been true of the race since history first 
recorded its acts and maxims : it has been true since older 
tradition loosely handed down its chequered memorials from 
generation to generation. 

2. This state of moral imperfection is not man's original 
state. This is a necessary conclusion. The Creator of man 
must have been a perfect Being : this many- voiced philosophy 
loudly affirms. Y/e cannot conceive, w^ithout a sense of 
absurdity and contradiction, of a perfect Being creating an 



NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 141 

intelligent and accountable creature except in his own image. 
To affirm that he was created in his present state of moral 
imperfection impeaches the skill and goodness of his Creator, 
and is contradictory and absurd. To affirm that man has 
fallen into this state, may suggest a difficulty to the mind, 
but it involves no contradiction, and it removes the difficulty 
which the other supposition calls up, which is a greater one, 
and implies a contradiction. Natural religion and philosophy 
may reject the story of man's fall as recorded by the old 
Hebrew historian (and this is not the place to urge it), but 
they, too, are driven to the supposition of a fall. 

Keeping these facts of the human position and character 
in view, and I think that no man who reflects upon them will 
call them in question, I proceed to observe, 

First, That when man fell in practice from the moral and 
religious law of his life, a direct divine revelation became 
necessary to rescue that law from obliteration and neglect. 

We can have little doubt tbat when man was created, the 
moral and religious law of his life was impressed upon his 
spiritual constitution, and directly revealed itself to his con- 
sciousness, even as the laws of his material existence were 
pricked down upon his bodily frame and revealed themselves 
in certain impulses and instincts. Our idea of the original 
man is that goodness was his native and steady impulse, the 
natural and unconstrained outgoing of his powers — that the 
law of his being, which is the law of his God, was written 
upon his heart. In this belief, I go not upon the testimony 
of revelation ; I am guided entirely by the reason of the 
case. It gives, more than any other supposition, the idea of 
completeness to the human constitution ; and best meets the 
conditions of the necessary truth that an intelligent and 
accountable creature, springing from the creative energy of 
a perfect Being, must be created in that Being's image. 
You can easily see that, in this state, man would make moral 
distinctions intuitively. He would know no elaborate pro- 
cess. He would have no difficulty as to his law. The touch- 
stone w^ould be in his own bosom. The hand-writing w^as 
within him. Every moral question would be a question of 
his own affection, sympathy, and tending; or, let us say, of 
his own conscience. But it will also become clear, when 



l-i2 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

studied for a little, that when man, by whatever cause, fell 
from the original, internal, law of his life, that law would 
become dim and unconspicuous — lose at once its clearness and 
its sanction. I say not that this would be the result of one 
unlawful action : it would not manifest itself except as the 
outcome of a lengthened series of actions. But in the first 
of the series, a process was commenced of creating new 
affections ; of giving undue force to original passions ; of 
weakening the due force of original principles ; of destroying, 
in short, the original balance and order, amid which the old 
moral distinctions would be lost, and the dictates of the old 
law misconstrued. Thus man must gradually have lost a 
knowledge of the law when he had ceased to practise it. 
Oar position can be illustrated by facts. The tribes of 
human kind, which, from the isolation of their position, have 
not had the law of their moral nature placed before them 
in an external, preceptive form, which have been a law unto 
themselves, which have followed the dictate of the original 
law so far as it remained in their hearts, shew with a melan- 
choly conclusiveness that, where there is no external monitor, 
the right notion of virtue dies with the practice of it. A 
feeble pulse of moral life we still find in them ; a sense of 
right and wrong ; but the utmost confounding of light and 
dark, of bitter and sweet, in their actual determinations as 
to what is right and wrong. Individual cases, which fall 
under our immediate observation, illustrate the position. We 
see men to whom education has given some correct sentiments 
as to right and wrong, but who have run their lives out into 
courses of daring immorality. They close their eyes upon the 
external records of law. They become insensible to the obliga- 
tions of right, level and trample out the line of demarcation 
which separates off what is wrong, and ultimately become in a 
great measure insensible to the distinction. They, at least, 
clearly evince that a few successive generations following in the 
same line, and educated under each other's eye, would be suffi- 
cient to destroy the capacity of judging between right and wrong. 
Nothing, I take it, could be more clear than that when man 
ceased to practise the original law of his life — that law having 
been internal, and, if we may so speak, constitutional — he 
would gradually lose the knowledge of the law itself, its cha- 



NECESSITY Of a DIVINE EEVEI,ATION. 143 

racter would be obliterated, and he would be left without his 
guide. 

In such a case, there seems only one course by which the 
law could be rescued from entire obliteration and neglect, 
namely, that it should be revealed in some objective form. 
Man has erased it from the tablet of consciousness, but it may 
yet be preserved to him by being sculptured on tables of 
stone There are w^ho sneer at Sinai, with its material terrors, 
and its law engraven upon stone, appealing to the senses ; but 
if those who sneer assume for a little the sedater mood of calm 
historical inquiry, they will find that, but for Sinai, we should 
have had a lawless world. And what horrors disclose them- 
selves to the imagination in the thought of a — lawless world ! 
" Anarchy would rage with unappeasable malignity ! The 
conflict would not be of interests, but of listed minds. It 
would be the unrestrained grapple of spirits. Chaos has been 
painted to us by poetry ; however wild, it works itself to qui- 
escence, and its fury stills. Not such the end of the intellec- 
tual elements, when in their strife and uproar. They cannot 
rock themselves to peace. Theirs is ever-rising surge. That 
sea, self- wrought, cannot rest. There is no voice to bid its 
proud waves stay ! Let us honour law as the crowning bles- 
sing of blessings." Sirs, law was necessary to our continued 
existence as a race ; at the very least, it was necessary to 
make our existence tolerable ; but as man had fallen from the 
practice, and lost the memory of it, it was necessary that the 
Law-giver should come to its rescue, and place it before us in 
a permanent external form, which no persistent disobedience 
of ours could affect ; in other words, when man fell in practice 
from the moral and religious law of his life, a direct divine 
revelation became necessary to rescue that law from oblitera- 
tion and neglect. 

I am quite aware that the conclusiveness of this reasoning 
may be called in question. It may be said that man would 
have experimented his way back to the moral and religious 
law of his life without a revelation : that his experience of 
the penalties of law which still remained in force, remindiu; 
him, at every turning of his apostacy, would have driven hir 
back upon the original law of his constitution. We might 
reply, that the experiment was allowed. Wide space was 



144: EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAN! IT. 

granted. Bat what was the consequence ? Man became worse 
and w^orse. " The world by wisdom knew not God." The 
experiment, if it may be so called, proved a miserable and 
melancholy failure. Facts disavow and disprove man's capa- 
city to have returned to the law of God. But the objection 
leads me to the second consideration which I had meant to pre- 
sent to you. 

Secondly^ A direct divine revelation was necessary to give 
intelligibility to moral and religious truth. 

It is necessary to any truth or class of truths, whose voca- 
tion is to establish itself in an ascendancy over the life of men, 
that it be generally intelligible. The mass of mankind must 
be able to understand it, and to comjDrehend its evidences. 
Moral and religious truth pre-eminently must be intelligible. 
Now, we affirm that nature does not teach moral and religious 
truth intelligibly. We know not whether, had man retained 
his original character, nature's tuition would have been suffi- 
cient to meet his wants and cravings. We know that he would 
have been much better qualified to interpret nature. Love, 
which is the grand interpreter, would have given him a tact of 
which he is now all but destitute. But as he is, nature has 
been to him a sealed book. But some one points with pride 
to the systems of natural theology, and asks, are not these in- 
telligible ! It is not to be denied. But whence came they ? 
Have they borrowed nothing from revelation ? It is a suspi- 
cious circumstance that all intelligible systems of natural theo- 
logy bear a comparatively modern date, that they are later 
than the latest Christian revelation. David Hume himself, 
" the prince of modern sceptics," said justly that the true phi- 
losophy respecting God was only eighteen hundred years old. 
If we would see pure natural theology, we must go back 
to a time prior at least to what is called the Xew Testament 
revelation ; and we have no evidence that it was entirely pure 
even then, for whispers of the God of the Jews had reached 
Greece and Rome. The men of that age have seldom, in the 
world's history, found their peers. To whom will you give a 
place beside Plato, who threw the light of unequalled genius 
upon every subject of his thought ? To whom will you give a 
place beside Aristotle, who crystallized into system everything 
he touched ? Does any one ask, was there no good in their svs- 



NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 145 

terns then ? Undoubtedly, much good ; but what good did it 
do ? It was not generally intelligible. It was confined to 
the philosophic few. We know not what influence it ex- 
erted upon the illuminati of the schools, but upon the 
masses it exerted simply no influence. It rested upon long 
abstruse reasonings. They could not appreciate it. Men 
whose minds have not by their vocation been submitted 
to severe disciplines are not in general very capable of un- 
derstanding the grounds of moral reasoning. It was so in 
Greece and Rome ; and the historian informs us that in con- 
sequence, '' the studious and learned among the Greeks and 
Romans retained almost the sole possession of all that was 
valuable in the schools and in the writings of the enlightened 
philosophers. Resting as their doctrines did upon long, arti- 
ficial, speculative, and abstruse reasonings, they accomplished 
very little for the religious and moral improvement of the 
most numerous class of society ; though this class stood most 
in need of instruction." We cannot blame the philosophers 
for the non-intelligibility of their systems. They arrived at 
their conclusions by long and painful processes of abstruse 
reasonings, and they had to vindicate their conclusions by ex- 
hibiting their processes. Then much of their non-intelligi- 
bility was attributable to their imperfection and mistakes. It 
required that a mind should speak which had not to fight its 
way up to the truth, but which could look down upon it — a 
mind which should see not only a section of the truth, but the 
whole. Such a mind would speak intelligibly. But such a 
mind would be God; and the oracle a Divine revelation. This 
seems to point to a divine revelation. 

Thirdly, A divine revelation, fittingly evidenced, was 
necessary to enforce moral and religious duty, with the voice 
of authority. 

The theory which afiirms that man may derive the know- 
ledge of all moral and religious truth which it is necessary for 
him to know from nature, goes upon the supposition that he 
only requires to have moral and religious truth indicated to 
him, as prescribed by natural law, to secure his obedience. In- 
deed, this is the foundation of their argument against revela- 
tion, that, as man may become virtuous and morally perfect, 
by a mere philosophical perception of moral truth ; and as this 

NO. X. 



146 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

may be obtained by the study of nature without any reference 
to a revelation, a revelation is superfluous. But this theory 
founds itself on a too ethereal estimate of man. We admit 
that in the case of a being purely rational, the mere philoso- 
phic perception of moral truth might be sufficient to induce 
obedience. Such a being's view of truth would be so entirely 
unobscured and deeply affecting, its bearing on his well-being 
would seem so direct, the reasons for obedience so numerous 
and conclusive, and the drawbacks, if there were any, so weak 
and few, that natural law would secure his homage. But in 
the case of man, partJy rational and partly sensual, and 
with a strong tendency (as all history declares) to gratify his 
passions at whatever hazard, it is a too fond fancy to suppose 
that the mere philosophical perception of moral truth will 
make him virtuous or morally perfect. If exception be 
claimed for a few minds of a high order, it is not necessary 
here to argue the point. It is not a question of the elite of 
humanity, but of the mass. Now, the voice of natural law 
lacks commanding tone to control the largest class. It does 
not imperiously arrest their attention ; and even when it does, 
and becomes subject to their examination, many of its evi- 
dences are so subtle as to leave the mind unsettled and unsa- 
tisfied. They need direct injunction. The mass of mankind, 
in one sense or other, I believe, all men, lean upon authority. 
An efficient rule of life must point to positive injunction and 
positive prohibition ; for they only make such a deep and 
lasting impression on the mind as to influence to obedience in 
all circumstances. The moral philosopher from his chair may 
dissertate upon the duty and the end of man, but the con- 
viction that God has spoken, that he has commanded a cer- 
tain course of action, will prove a motive to obedience, and a 
restraint from sin in circumstances in which the voice of the 
sage vv^ould be unheard. 

The human mind seeks a certainty in which it may rest ; 
and all history shows that men have deeply felt the necessity 
of a divine revelation, to give quietness to their minds. This 
only explains the wide acceptance of those religious systems 
which pretend to be of divine origin. Many of them pre- 
sent a tissue of absurdities and obscurities which it is humi- 
liating to think that intelligent human creatures could be 



NECESSITY OF A DIVIXE REVELATIOX. 147 

brought to believe. But tbis does not weaken, it rather 
strengthens, the argument. For the greater the absurdity 
which a man receives on the strength of authority, the 
stronger is the evidence that authority has a charm for him. 
This being the case, we should naturally expect that God 
would supply the desideratum by a direct divine revelation — 
fittingly evidenced : it alone can meet the case. 

FoiirMy, When man fell in practice from the original law 
of his life, a direct divine revelation became necessary to dis- 
close the intention of God with respect to hira. 

It is true, that had imperial justice held on its natural 
course, such a revelation would not have been called for. 
Man would simply have been crushed. He must, in the 
hour of his sin, have taken his last view of the regions of 
peace, and have dropped from his hold of well-being into 
misery. The law when violated needed the help of no reve- 
lation. It was already prepared to strike. But, apart from 
the testimony of the Christian Scriptures, we have abundant 
evidence that the law did not enforce this extreme. Man is 
not enduring here the full evil consequences of his apostacy from 
God and goodness in his violation of the law of his being and 
the universe. His course and standing are still in some sense 
probational. There is some conservative agency at work. To 
suppose that the present life of man exhibits the full breadth, 
and intensity of the penal inflictions with which the moral 
government of the universe is armed, or that the infliction 
upon man of the full penal consequences of his sin is merely 
deferred —without reference to any plan of recovery — 
whilst he, amidst numberless comforts and blessings, is lay- 
ing up for himself wrath against the day of wrath, would 
set aside all our ideas of justice and eflective administration. 
Judging merely from man's present circumstances in a world 
furnished with all the implements proper to a scene of moral 
discipline and probation, under which, in some instances, he 
actually becomes good, cheered by many joys, crowned with 
many blessings, notwithstanding that he is an apostate from 
goodness and a sinner against God, we are driven upon the 
conclusion that man, having violated the law under which he 
was originally placed, is now placed under what we may call 
a moderated economy (remarking that the word implies no re- 



148 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

flection upon the original economy as unfairly severe), by 
which the penalty of his sin is averted or deferred during a 
term of renewed probation. Now, of this economy, nature 
could give to man no hint or token. External nature could 
not. It could only speak of the first order of things — its own 
contemporary. It had apart which it dumbly executed in the 
original economy : it could take no other part. Internal na- 
ture could not. It had been expressly constituted with a re- 
ference to the perfect law under which it was placed at its 
creation. It could testify of that law only. That law was 
constitutional to it : all its signs and tokens pointed to it. Of 
this new economy, then, man could know only by divine re- 
velation. It was a purpose and plan of the divine mind pro- 
jected subsequently to man's creation ; and man could become 
acquainted with it only by the Divine Being unfolding it to 
him. 

To illustrate this position more fully, let us (for the sake 
of the illustration merely) suppose that the mediatorial scheme 
which the Christian Scriptures unfold, is the economy under 
which man is at present placed — that the present standing of 
man, and the treatment which he at present receives under the 
divine government, are owing to the propitiatory sacrifice of 
Immanuel — that this economy is one of mercy and reconcilia- 
tion ; is it not clear that of such an economy man could have 
no knowledge without a direct comnjunication from God on 
the subject. It was in no way implied in the original consti- 
tution of things. Had it been implied by the slightest an- 
ticipatory hint, it would have been a defect in that constitu- 
tion. It might have become a motive to disobedience, for it 
would point to disobedience as contingent or even certain. 
Man could not have had the remotest idea of it. It depended 
entirely upon the volition of God. Man might, for anything 
we know to the contrary, have hoped, from his general know- 
ledge of the character of Gocl, that He would be merciful ; 
but of the specific character of the economy under which his 
mercy would be exercised, he could have no more idea than 
of any other volition of the infinite mind. What, is thus true 
of the mediatorial economy, supposing it to be that under 
vfhich man is placed, must be equally true of any other eco- 
nomy which inYolves a deviation from the original constitution 



NECESSITY OF A DIYIXE REYELATIOX. 149 

of things, or a modification of it, or which is merely su- 
perinduced upon it. Whatever be the character of the 
economy under which man is now placed, then, seeing that 
it is, at least, a modification of the first one, a divine re- 
velation must have been reqaired to make it known. Only 
God, or one who had come forth from his bosom, could de- 
clare it. 

Here my argument closes. I believe it has shown (a) that 
there is nothing in the nature of the case to render a revela- 
tion improbable, and (b) that, when the condition and require- 
ments of man are considered, a revelation was actually neces- 
sary. It is not my plan, even did time permit, to bring the 
argument to bear on the Christian Scriptures. I only remark 
that they stand out from all other writings which pretend to 
a divine origin, beaming with characteristics worthy of God, 
and exhibiting tokens which are surely His. 



( 150 ) 



LECTURE VIII. 

ON THE 

ETEENAL DUEATION OF FLTUEE PUNISHMENTS. 

BY THE EEV. ALEX. HANNAY. 



The lecture of this evening treats of the Scripture doctrine 
of Future Punishments — chiefly as to their duration. 

It is a dread theme. Few would have selected it. I know 
not that I should have had the daring to choose it of myself ; 
hut neither had I the cowardice to shrink from it when it was 
imposed upon me by others. All truths are net palatable to 
minds vitiated and degraded by sin ; but all are wholesome. 
The man who exhibits truth in her sternness is not less a be- 
nefactor of the race, than the man who exhibits her in her 
benignity. His may be the more unthanked service, but it 
is not the less necessary. The truth-speaker's voice cannot 
always be soft and gentle. The " beloved disciple" was a 
'* son of thunder." " The burden of the Lord" must not be 
evaded. But to denounce condemnation is a task which a 
creature cannot lightly assume. Paley's words are most fit — 
** It is very difficult to handle this dreadful subject properly ; 
and one cause among others of the difficulty is, that it is not 
for one poor sinner to denounce such appalling terrors, such 
tremendous consequences against another. Damnation is a 
word which lies not in the mouth of man, who is a worm, to- 
wards any of his fellow-creatures whatsoever ; yet it is absolutely 
necessary that the threatening of Almighty God be made 
known and published." We assume the fearful task. 

How does the Scripture doctrine of future punishments 
stand related to the general theme of our lectures — the evi- 



ETERNAL DURATION' OF EUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 151 

dences of Christianity ? Why is it assigned a j)lace in the 
series ? It belongs, with all the other doctrines of the Scrip- 
turesj to the department of internal evidence. It is here 
singled out, because perhaps more than any other doctrine it 
has been made the butt of infidel scorn; and because many 
minds of a more ingenuous and sedate order have regarded it 
as covering the character of the Universal Governor with dis- 
honour, and as revolting to the best feelings of our own 
hearts. 

Could sound proof of either of these allegations be adduced, 
it would of course disprove the pretensions of Christianity. 
A divine system cannot dishonour God, or be revolting to 
the feelings of God's creatures (supposing those feelings to be 
unvitiated and original.) Indeed, if Christianity has published 
a new and unnatural doctrine of future punishments, the fact 
will be evidence as strong against it, as though it had pub- 
lished a new and unnatural doctrine of the human constitu- 
tion, involving the denial, for instance, of man's accountable- 
ness and immortality. Christianity, if it be of God, must 
have taken the doctrine of future punishments as it found it 
in the original constitution of things ; it is, therefore, a fair 
question (though a difficult one), whether its representations 
accord with that original constitution. It becomes us here to 
show that there is accordance, or, if our intelligence reach not so 
far, that there is at least no apparent contradiction. We have 
the double task of exegesis and apology. We must first, by a 
very brief examination of the Scripture testimony, ascertain 
its doctrine, and then examine whether that doctrine be such 
as to rendr^r the book which proclaims it unworthy of credit. 

I. What, then, is the doctrine of the Scriptures ? Ques- 
tions have been raised. There is not absolute unanimity 
among professed Christians. Yet the general testimony of 
the Church in all ages is, that the torments of the impenitent 
shall be eternal, strictly endless. Individual protests may be 
heard against the general opinion, but all departures from it 
have been branded by general sanction as dangerous heresy. 
In our own times there are whispers of wide-spread though 
unavowed defection from the generally received doctrine 
among the reputedly orthodox. The case is probably exag- 
gerated. If not, there is a cowardice in the concealment which 



152 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



is contemptible. This age is one in which many motives 
might lead to an abandonment or softening of the Scripture 
testimony on this momentous question. Liberality of senti- 
ment is at a premium. If a man is to have the reputation of 
being abreast with his contemporaries, he must thin out the 
old solid forms of belief. He must find objections to what is 
ancient and 2:eneral]y believed. He must beware of seeming 
credulity. This is a snare and traj). It becomes each one to 
be jealous of himself. A man may fill his sheet with the 
gales of popular favour ; but let him ask himself, whither is 
this gale urging me ? 

Opinions of the ancients or the moderns, however, are not 
to be held as conclusive. Human suffrage is not our ultimate 
appeal. The question still is — what saith the Scriptures ? 
This question, with great ,brevity, we must endeavour to an- 
swer here. 

(a.) What is the impression which the announcements of 
the Scriptures on this subject make on the general mind ? 
This may be decried as involving a false canon of interpreta- 
tion. Why appeal to the impression made on the general 
mind, it will be asked ? It has no critical acumen. But we 
cannot yield the point. The Scriptures are addressed to the 
general mind, and the scope of their leading announcements 
may fairly be argued from the general impression. To main- 
tain otherwise were to charge them not only with failure, but 
with unfitness to their grand design. Besides, a truth does 
not always helplessly depend for its announcement upon the 
mere words into which it is fashioned. The general line of 
truth into which it falls, the general scope of the context in 
which it occurs, the general character of the consciousness to 
which it appeals, often help out the struggling meaning with 
a force and fulness for which the bare words very imperfectly 
account. And this fact makes the general impression of any 
truth taught in the Scriptures or elsewhere, frequently a safer 
guide in interpretation than the conclusions of an exacting 
critical acumen. Indeed the precisest language which can be 
used will fail to convey any truth to us unequivocally, unless 
we trust much to the impression which its general announce- 
ment makes upon our minds ; let us jDut it on the rack of an 
ingenious criticism, and it will falter in its utterance, and 



ETERNAL DCRATION OF PUTUP.E PUNISHMENTS. 153 

mock US with its equivocations. AYhat, then, is the general 
impression on the minds of readers of the Scriptures as to 
their doccrine of future punishments ? Here there is no room 
for controversy. On all hands the general impression appears 
that the punishment of the impenitent is declared to be eter- 
nal in its duration. The infidel reader of the Scriptures has 
the impression that thej denounce everlasting torments, and 
he therefore rejects them. So unhesitating is this judgment 
that he will accept no explanation ; he regards as contempti- 
ble subterfuge every attempt to explain away a doctrine which 
has in its announcement so little that seems obscure or equi- 
vocal. The great mass of professed Christians have the same 
impression of the Scripture testimony. Only a few are found 
who, determined by philosophical and dogmatical reasons, 
construe it into a limited term of punishment. But they do 
not profess to take the natural and obvious meaning ; but by 
various ingenuities they torture out a meaning, which better 
accords with their pre-judgments. This we think no unim- 
portant evidence as to what the real testimony of the Scrip- 
tures is. Can they on such a subject be supposed so to falter, 
or to speak so obscurely as to be all but universally misun- 
derstood ? 

(b.) But we would not by urging this argument farther 
(though we think it conclusive), give room for the suspicion 
that the words in which the doctrine of future punishments is 
announced in the Scriptures, will not, on being closely exa- 
mined, bear the construction of unending duration. 

It will not be expected that I should here enter upon a critical 
examination of the language. This is not the place. The process 
would be unintelligible. And were this a fitting place for such 
disquisition, I should sparingly enter upon it. I do not think it 
the conclusive mode. It may be proved that the words by which 
the duration of future punishments is expressed in the origi- 
nal Scriptures, are used in various connections by the classical 
writers to express a term of limited duration. But this still 
leaves the question unsettled, namely, what is the sense of 
these terms in the Christian revelation ? It is clear that the 
revealing of such a system as the Christian religion in any 
language must have had the effect of expanding and altering 
the meaning of many of the words in its vocabulary. These 



154 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

words had acted as the vehicles of certain current thoughts 
and beliefs from time immemorial ; but when the new system 
brought its new thoughts, and extended the horizon of the 
general view, the old words would be used with a new inten- 
sity of meanins:, would be made to carry a larger burden of 
thought. This is the principle on which every language grows 
in copiousness, and changes in the meaning of its particular 
words, as the people who use it multiply the objects of their 
thought, and become more accurate in their knowledge. A 
recent writer remarks, " The signs of the Greek language were 
to be expanded, and many of them newly fixed, when it re- 
ceived such a religion as the Christian into its nomenclature. 
This is far more cogent in proof than a strict philological argu- 
ment. We ask not, as though shut up to the rule, what does 
a Greek word express ? though we dishonour not these her- 
meneutics — but what would Christianity convey by it ?" It 
is clear, therefore, that the fixed and uniform use of the words 
which express the duration of future punishments throughout 
the scriptures, and in connections where their meaning is be- 
yond controversy, is the rule by which we must be guided in 
our inquiry. The usus scribendi must determine. The mode 
of investigation is exceedingly simple. Here are certain 
terms which express the duration of future puni-hments. We 
are anxious to know their exact meaning, and we refer to other 
passages where the same words are used in connections which 
leave no doubt as to their meaning. 

There has never been any question raised as to the strict 
eternity of the state of rewards. Even those who deny pro- 
per constitutional immortality to man, admit that the righte- 
ous are immortalized for an unending happiness. The words 
in which the Christian rewards are promised have always been 
admitted to express the fullest idea of boundlessness. Here 
no one limits the terms. All rejoice in the infinity on whose 
bosom they launch out our hopes. The Christian rests on the 
scripture testimony. He knows not his bright destiny other- 
wise. But here he is abundantly assured. In what conclu- 
sive terms, then, are these unending rewards promised to the 
saints? Surely if the punishments of the impenitent were 
threatened in language as conclusively pointing to eternity, 
there would be no question as to their meaning. Hear it, 



ETERNAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 155 

tlien, candid and intelligent men, the words which promise 
eternal peace to the good are the verj same that are used to 
describe the duration of the punishment of the wicked ! I 
give examples. " Our light affliction, which is but for a mo- 
ment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal Vi' eight 
of glorj ; while we look not at the things which are seen, bat 
at the things which are not seen : for the things which are 
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
eternal.^'' Here is the promise of the Christian reward. It 
is eternal as opposed to temporary. Is this word, then, for 
which eternal stands here, and which is admitted to mean 
eternal, ever used to express the duration of future punish- 
ment? It is the ever recurring word. It stands in uniform 
use. Here is a specimen — " The Lord Jesus shall be revealed 
from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming f re, taking 
vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and 
from the glory of his power." The word here translated 
*•' everlasting^''^ and applied to punishment, is the same as that 
which in the former quotation is translated '* eternal'' and ap- 
plied to reward. If it mean eternal as to the reward, on what 
principle are we asked to concede that it must or even may 
mean any thing less than eternal as to the punishment ? These 
are not singular quotations. They accord with the universal 
parallelism of the Scriptures. The righteous are " ordained 
unto eternal life ;" the wicked are " in danger of everlasting 
judgment." The righteous "believe on Him to life everlast- 
ing;" '' the wicked are cast into everlasting fire." In these 
and in a very lengthened series of pairs, which might be enu- 
merated but for the tediousness of the process, the word which 
is used to point out the duration of reward and the duration 
of punishment is the same. Surely there is a bias of selfish- 
ness betrayed in the interpretation which leaves to the word 
its current meaning of eternity when it qualifies a promised 
reward, but limits it to a definite duration when it qualifies a 
threatened punishment. 

If doubt remained as to the proper meaning of the term by 
which the future punishment of the impenitent is generally 
expressed, there is one passage which must surely be allowed 



156 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

to have conclusive force. The great high priest and apostle 
of Christianity has been announcing the principles of the last 
judgment. His solemn discourse closes with the compendious 
declaration — " These (the impenitent) shall go away into ever- 
lasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Here 
again there is no distinction. There is not one term used to 
define the punishment and another to define the reward. So 
long as this single passage remains, there can be no doubt on 
my mind as to the scripture doctrine on the duration of future 
punishment. In all the other discourses of Christ, the phrase 
" eternal life" is understood to mean, strictly unending happi- 
ness. Here it cannot deviate from its uniform meaning. And 
if the life be eternal, it would be a bold and reckless criticism 
which would limit the punishment. 

There is a use of this word yet unnoticed which some may 
think even more conclusive than the use which we have indi- 
cated. It expresses the strict idea of eternity as applicable to 
the existence of the Divine Being. " Now unto the King 
eternal^ immortal, and invisible, the only wise God, be honour 
and glory for ever and ever. Amen." This word, which ex- 
presses the duration of the divine existence, is that which is 
used to mark the duration of future punishments. In the 
phrase, " God blessed for ever,'' it is the same word. " When 
the strongest declarations are made in the ancient Hebrew 
scriptures of the divine eternity — as when Jehovah lifteth up 
his hand to heaven and saith, I live for ever ! — this word — 
this ivord uniformly used to express the duration of future 
punishment in the New Testament — is the term every Greek 
translator adopts to express it, whether of the Alexandrine 
band, when Greek was classically pure, or of the New Testa- 
ment writers, when they render a quotation, inspired as they 
were to understand the whole of the revealed truth. When 
there is the strongest necessity for whatever of force the lan- 
guage contains — when the demand is most awfully urgent (as 
in expressing the unending existence of the Divine Being) — 
this is the term it yields. If there were a greater it would 
offer it.'' By what authority shall the term which expresses 
the eternal duration of God be limited when it is applied to 
the punishments which he has threatened against sinful crea- 
tures ? 



ETERNAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 157 

A great deal has been made, for popular effect, of an ex- 
tremely superficial objection. It has been said that the terms 
which express unlimited duration, are sometimes used in a 
lower sense — the understood inference being, that tliej may 
be applicable in a lower sense to future punishments. But 
the cases in which these terms are used in a lower sense, under 
the license of rhetorical and imaginative composition, are such 
as to preclude the possibility of mistake. When we speak of 
the everlasting hills or the eternal sea, or apply such terms to 
anything that is proper to time or this earth, no one under- 
stands us to affirm them in their literal acceptation ; but when 
such predicates are used in calm didactic discourse, when they 
qualify a blessing promised, or a threatening denounced, the 
supposition of license and poetical predicate is quite unallow- 
able. The two uses of this class of words creates no confusion, 
and can only be taken advantage of by an argument in straits. 

The passages appealed to by those who affirm the limited du- 
ration of future punishments, cannot in this extremely brief and 
hasty argument be considered. I only offer a general rule to 
guide you in considering them. To invalidate the positive and 
direct testimony which has been adduced in proof of the eter- 
nity of future punishment, they would require to meet it with 
counter-testimony equally direct and positive. No strained 
interpretation, no ** possible meaning,'' no hidden sense, can 
be accepted. With this rule you are safe ; for there is no 
direct testimony — this all admit — which affirms that the 
punishment of the wicked will exhaust itself. 

(c.) There is still another aspect under which this question 
may be considered. Which of the two contending theories of fu- 
ture punishment best consists with the general dccirinal repre- 
sentations of the Scriptures ? Therepudiators of the^^doctrine 
of eternal punishment are divided into two classes ; those who 
maintain that the wicked will be annihilated, and that their 
punishment will consist in their annihilation, forming one 
class, and those who affirm that the wicked will be universally 
restored to eternal happiness, after enduring their appointed 
punishment, forming the other. 

Now, suppose.the case of annihilation. The apologists of this 
system say, that their theory best agrees with the doctrinal re- 
presentations of the Scriptures. The final state of punishment, 



158 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

they say, is called the " second death." The reply is, that ceasing 
to be — annihilation, is not the necessary idea of death. And, in 
the New Testament Scriptures, the phrase, " second death," 
will not bear this definition. It is consistent with existence 
and conscious suffering. During its reign there is the gnawing 
of the deithless worm, and the torment of the unquenchable fire. 
There is fury, anguish, despair — weeping, and wailing, and 
gnashing of teeth. There is death in its unrelenting hold — 
a living death in its " endless pang." There is a death of 
the soul. " The soul dies when it is cut off from that divine 
support which is its strength : from that divine direction 
which is its use ; from that divine favour which is its good.'* 
In the second death this is realized ; but there is no destruc- 
tion of being. This is demonstrated by that dread apocalypse 
of actual hell, with its intense shriek of agony, and cry of 
prayer, which the gospel has preserved to us. " The rich 
man died and was buried ; and in hell he lift up his eyes, be- 
ing in torments. And seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus 
in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have 
mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of 
his finger in water, and cool my tongue ; for I am tormented 
in this flame." This verifies itself as description. The rich 
man was enduring the second death. Does it wear the aspect 
of annihilation ? Does he not thirst ? Does he not feel the 
unquenchable flame ? Hath he not conscious agony? Other 
crushing considerations might be heaped upon this inane 
fancy ; but we forbear. It certainly does not consist with the 
Scriptures. 

But there is the other supposition, namely, that those who 
die impenitent shall ultimately be restored to complete and 
eternal happiness. The moral qualification is of course as- 
sumed. The condemned, it is expected, will return to good- 
ness, and be received into the favour of God. We ask, on 
what ground is this expected ? It is answered, the punish- 
ment which they will endure in hell will so convince them of 
the folly of sin, and opportunity of sinning will be so cut ofi", 
that, not being tempted, they will naturally return to good- 
ness. With the philosophy of this opinion I have at present 
nothing to do ; the sole question is, is it consistent with scrip- 
tural representation ? Observe what it implies. It implies 



ETERNAL DURATION OE FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 159 

that hell is a theatre of more effective moral discipline than 
earth ; for those who were incorrigible under the disciplines 
of earth, yield under the disciplines of hell : it implies that 
God, in sending the condemned to hell, is only sending them 
bj another route to heaven ; that there is no difference be- 
tween the fatherly chastisements with, which he visits his 
saints, and the torments which he inflicts upon the reprobate 
—both having t};e intention and the power to make the suf- 
ferers partakers of his holiness. Does this comport with 
scriptural representation ? Are not the words of the Judge 
words of severity and wrath ? AVhy not, rather, if this sup- 
position be the true one, of love and tenderness ? '^ Depart 
ye cursed." Does it sound like a consignment to a new 
teacher of goodness, who shall certainly send them from his 
care to heaven and high favour ? Or, if hell be thus dis- 
ciplinary, why are such horrors associated with its name ? 
These horrors must be light when compared with the eternal 
glory to which it is only the darkened vestibule. But surely 
no one, with a mind unprejudiced by system, can read the 
scriptural descriptions of that place, and retain this notion. 
But, let it still be supposed that the reprobate are released 
from their durance and torments. On what ground are they 
set at liberty and admitted into heaven? They have become 
good. Well ; but what of their past sins ? Have they en- 
dured the full punishment which justice exacts for all their 
disobedience ? There are some who affirm that they will not 
be liberated otherwise. ^Yhat follows, then ? They enter 
heaven purged by their own suffering. They disdainfully 
rejected the offer of help from a Mediator, and now they have 
"^Tought out their own salvation. They bow not, but stand 
erect before the throne. They have no sympathy with the 
song, " Worthy is the Lamb.'' Does this comport with 
scriptural representation ? Xo apocalypse justifies the thought 
that heaven will be thus strangely colonized. We gather 
that there will be one song there, and no songless voices. 

But if hell has this purgatorial energy, if it gives those who 
are cast into it opportunity to expiate their guilt, how are we 
to explain the mission of Christ ? Is not the whole scheme 
lof redemption laid open to the charge of superfluity ? Why 
shoidd he have died to save men ? They would ultimately 



160 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

have saved themselves. Or, does that scheme, on this suppo- 
sition, deserve to be represented as the outbirth of such un- 
paralleled and exuberant love ? Does it not rather wear the 
aspect of an attempt to wrest the honour of salvation out of 
man's hands ? In short, this theory of future punishments 
explains nothing, agrees with nothing ; it covers every thing 
with obscurity, and contradicts all that is " most surely be- 
lieved." 

But the supposition works itself into a form which more 
nearly approaches the evangelical sentiment. It is said, 
" Christ's work will be eternally efficacious." It will always 
save when believed — in time or eternity, in earth or hell. 
The reprobate will be saved by believing in Christ. The dis- 
pensation of mercy, then, will continue ! Christ will literally 
preach to the spirits in prison ! The term of probation will 
never end ! Does this agree with scriptural representation ? 
Are we not told by a scriptural writer, in express words, that 
the mediatorial reign of Christ will terminate at the resurrec- 
tion ? that there will be no longer any gospel ? that the reins 
of government will be given up into the hands of the Father ? 
which can mean only that the dispensation of mercy will ter- 
minate. '' Then," saith that writer, " cometh the end, when 
he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Fa- 
ther ; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, 
and all power. For he must reign until he hath put all his 
enemies under his feet." This theory contradicts the Scrip- 
tures. According to it Christ must continue in his mediato- 
rial office for ever ; the Scriptures name the time, and de- 
scribe the mode of his abdication. According to it mercy 
must continue to rule ; the Scriptures name the time at which 
the government shall be restored to Justice — a time which 
precludes the possibility of salvation to the reprobate. But 
does not this theory of j^ost mortem discipline and probation 
militate against the whole scope of the Scriptures ? Some of 
their most affecting motives to diligence and virtue are de- 
rived from the fact, that the term of probation closes here. 
'' This is the day of salvation." '' Xow.'" " To-day." Thi. 
is the day of work, " the night cometh.'' The present eco 
nomy is announced as final. '' The gospel of the kingdon \ 
shall be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations 



ETERNAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 161 

and then shall the end come." Of the impenitent it is said, 
"• then saw I their end," '' whose end is destruction.'' Surely 
that must be a hope which no prospect will dishearten, which 
can encourage itself by such representations. 

We are driven, in shorty whether we consider the general 
impression made bj the declarations of the Bible on the sub- 
ject, or more minutely examine the terms in which these de- 
clarations are made, or compare the general scope of Christian 
truth —we are driven to the conclusion that the Scripture saith, 
the torments of the impenitent shall he eternal. If odium 
attach to this doctrine, the Scriptures must bear it. It cannot 
be torn from them. It is necessary to the integrity of their 
system. It affects every part. 

But is it opposed to reason ? Does it furnish an argument 
against the truth of revelation ? Is its improbability or ab- 
surdity such as to render the system which adopts it unworthy 
of credit? This is now our inquiry. Let us consider the alle- 
gations which are adduced against it. It is said — 

It would be unjust to punish sin, which is finite and tempo- 
rary, with eternal suffering. 

Dogmatism on this high subject may well surprise us. Can 
we judge such a question ? Is there not ineffable presumption 
in the assuming of this attitude ? Can we bring under our 
view the whole empire over which Justice presides ? Or, were 
this possible, can we estimate the magnitude and momentous- 
ness of the interests with which it deals ? Can we determine 
the precise enormity of sin ? Or are we in circumstances to 
learn the use of fature punishments so exactly as to be able 
to say at what point they would become superfluous ? Surely 
a more modest pretension would better harmonize with our 
limited capacity and partial intelligence. How should we be 
qualified to form an intelligent estimate of the relations of 
Justice to the Divine Being, and to a universe of accountable 
creatures ? Dr Samuel Clark says justly, '* As to the duration 
of future punishment, no man can presume, in our present 
state of ignorance and darkness, to be able truly to judge, 
barely by the strength of his own natural reason, what in this 
respect is or is not consistent with the wisdom, and justice, 
and goodness of the Supreme Governor of the world ; since 
we know neither the place, nor kind, nor manner, nor circum- 

NO. XI. 



162 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

stances, nor degrees, nor all the ends and uses of the final 
punishment of the wicked.'' 

But, apart from the unfitness of incapacity and ignorance, 
are we likely to he fair judges ? Is it a question for interested 
parties to ponder? The argument afiPects ourselves — may we 
not be partial ? The criminal is not consulted as to the fitting 
punishment of his crime. No one is surprised when he re- 
j)roaches his judge with undue severity. His position is not 
one from wliich the grandeur of justice can be viewed or its 
claims estimated, or its retributions tested. His protest does 
not cause the judge to falter and re-examine, or the public to 
stand and enquire, as though an injustice had been done. The 
criminal's relation to the administrative justice of his country 
is ours to the justice of the universal Governor. We are not 
competent witnesses. Our judgments have a leaning. Our 
Terdict is the yerdict at once of ignorance and prejudice. 

But let us examine the proposition — '• It would be unjust 
to punisli sin, which is finite and temporary, with eternal suf- 
fering." There can be no question but that sin in the act and 
in the time necessary to perpetration, is finite and temporary. 
It seems m.ere quibbling to afiirm that si]i is infinite because 
it is the violation of an infinite law, and the defiance of an 
infinite lawgiver. Xo act of a creature can be otherwise 
than finite in itself, and it can never borrow the quality of in- 
finitude from any thing else. It is admitted, then, that sin 
" is finite and temporary." But it is maintained that this has 
nothing to do with its ill-deservings ; and, therefore, nothing 
to do witb the quality or duration of its punishment. Xo one 
ever thinks of determining the heinousness of a wrong action 
by the length of time occupied in the perpetration of it, or by 
the space, so to speak, over which it extends. Let the case 
be supposed of an injury done to you by a neighbour. Your 
estimate of the action is little affected by the length of time 
occupied in the infliction of the injury, or by the results, how- 
ever disastrous, which immediately flow from it. Your esti- 
mate is determined by the malignity of feeling which the in- 
jury indicates. This rule must guide us in estimating the 
ill-deservings, and the punishableness of sin. Bishop Hors- 
ley's language is precisely to the point. **' Qualities are not to 
be measured by duration : they bear no more relation to it 



ETERXAL DURATION OE FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 163 

than they do to space. The hatefulness of sin is seated in 
itself, in its own inherent quality of evil : by that its ill-de- 
servings are to be measured, not by the narrowness of the 
limits, either of time or space, within which the good provi- 
dence of God hath confined its power of doing mischief.'' To 
suggest, therefore^ the finite and temporary character of sin 
as a reason why its punishment should not be eternal is in- 
conclusive and irrelevant. The punishable quality of sin is 
one which has no reference to time. It is of the essence of 
the thing. We cannot even adopt the language which resolves 
the sinfulness of sin into opposition to the will of the univer- 
sal lawgiver. In this view it has undoubtedly all the base- 
ness of ingratitude, and all the hatefulness of impiety. But 
it is intrinsically bad. Had no law denounced it, it would 
have been bad. It is the opposite of all that we approve and 
admire. In the words of Dr Hamilton, " It wars against the 
eternal virtues, against the eternal architypes in which they 
rest, against the God in whom they are perfected, against the 
universe which they only can preserve." From this point, 
then, should the view be taken if we would determine the 
punishment which it deserves. But who shall venture, on the 
strength of his own reason, to write its sentence, and say it 
must be thus and not otherwise ? 

This proposition may be yet farther examined in the light 
of the natural punishments of sin, so far as they are open to 
our observation, or known to our experience. There are cer- 
tain consequences which flow from sin, as the violation of the 
law of our constitution, which are called the natural punish- 
ments of sin. Regret, sorrow, and remorse of conscience, 
flow from the consciousness of having committed sin, and by 
their tormenting pangs scare away the serene peacefulness of 
innocence. There are some who believe that sin will be 
punished in no other way than by these natural consequences. 
I see many reasons against this belief; but it is quite clear 
that these natural punishments will at least largely co-ope- 
rate with such as are positive and arbitrary in the tormenting 
of the condemned. Now, it is certain that these natural 
punishments do not confine their inflictions to the hour in 
which the sin punished by them is perpetrated — that they do 
not limit their penalties with a scrupulous regard to the tern- 



164 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

porary character of the act. The sin of youth extends its 
consequence down through all the stages of life. It is an in- 
variable presence. It gives hollo wness to the laughter of 
youth, it disturbs the sedateness of maturity, it blurs the dig- 
nity of age. On the death-bed it becomes an agony. Xo one 
feels such punishment to be unjust ; and did the life of man 
extend to a milennium, this punishment would still accom- 
pany him, would still burn and rage within him. And no one 
would feel it to be unjust, or appeal to the temporary charac- 
ter of the act as a reason why it should cease. Nay, could we 
conceive of the life of man being indefinitely extended in the 
present state and form, carrying its identity through many 
successive milenniums, we cannot suppose otherwise than that 
this natural punishment would still continue to mix with and 
embitter the stream of life ; and no one would feel it to be 
unjust, or appeal to the finite and temporary character of the 
act as a reason why it should cease. All would justify it as 
natural consequence. Now, if the impenitent are to live after 
death, and for ever, in the full integrity of consciousness, how 
can it be shewn that this natural punishment will not continue 
to agitate and torment them eternally, or that, being a natu- 
ral consequence, such eternal torment would be unjust ? Here 
it shews no tendency to terminate ; in death it only becomes 
more severe, as though anticipating the intenser form of life 
into which its subject is about to be introduced. Here con- 
sciousness is its throne ; but the impenitent carry their con- 
sciousness with them. Here memory is its scourge ; but they 
carry memory with them, not impaired but quickened. And 
so long as memory and consciousness remain to them, un- 
purged, their tormentors remain. But this is equal to the 
conception of an eternal hell ; and who shall call it unjust, 
now that it appears in the light of a natural consequence ? To 
call it unjust, if it thus flow naturally out of sin, would be to 
say that the human constitution is founded in injustice, that 
the springs of human consciousness are touched by the hand 
of Injustice, that Almighty Injustice made us and now rules. 
We may not be able to present considerations sufiSciently co- 
gent positively to vindicate the eternal punishment of the im- 
penitent from the charge of injustice ; but, surely, the fact that 
the natural punishments for which the human constituion pro- 



ETERXAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 165 

vides may, and so far as present sign or token indicates, must 
continue as long as being lasts ; and the fact that such punish- 
ments cannot for a moment be conceived of as unjust, suffi- 
ciently shew that the verdict of injustice is an illusion. For 
if the natural punishments of sin continue eternally, no reason 
can be shewn why any arbitrary punishments which may be 
associated with them, should not be of equal duration — that 
hell, in short, in the widest acceptation of the term, should 
not be eternal. 

Viewed in this light it will also appear that the doctrine of 
eternal punishment is not peculiar to the Scriptures — that it 
is the doctrine of nature. We said in an early part of the 
lecture, that the Scriptures, if they be from God, must have 
taken the doctrine of future punishments as they found it in 
the original constitution of things. The only indication of 
that original constitution which we have, is to be found in the 
natural punishments with which sin is visited here. These 
seem indelible. They mix with the life of the sinner, stretch 
out with it, — that life being presumed immortal, they must be 
presumed eternal. The Scriptures, then, do not bear the 
odium of this doctrine alone. They share it with nature. 

Before setting this charge finally aside, I must observe, 
that it obviously originates in a superficial view of sin. This 
appears in the very terms of the charge. It takes a partial 
view. It considers not sin in its essence. It fastens upon 
an accident. It does not ask, what is sin intrinsically ? It 
does not examine its proper essential qualities. It merely 
asks, what time is occupied in the perpetration? Xo one can 
regard a judgment formed upon such a partial view as intel- 
ligent. This is not a question of time or space. It is a ques- 
tion of essential malignity, which has no material propor- 
tions, no material relations. It is a question of spirit-war 
against goodness and God. And who shall estimate the 
heinousness of such antagonism ? Man ? He may ; he has 
approached the right conception. He has seen sin in its ex- 
ceeding sinfulness. It has stood forth to his view a stupen- 
dous enormity. He has felt that no extreme of punishment 
which hell may imply as to intensity, or eternity, as to dura- 
tion, would be unjust retribution. But these views he had 
not while he lived in strenuous sinning. This kind cometh 



166 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

only of self-sacrifice and growing goodness. If a man would 
pronounce upon sin, as to its heinousness and punishableness, 
let him become good. I repeat, you ask not the criminal's 
judgment as to the punishment due to his crime, unless, in- 
deed, he has repented of it, and become a good citizen. The 
cases are parallel. We cannot trust the sinner's judgment 
upon the severity and duration of the punishment due to his 
sin, unless he has become penitent and saintly. 

It is argued that the Governor of the universe must, in the 
punishments which in justice he inflicts upon the wicked, con- 
template their good, the restoration of them to goodness ; and 
that, as eternal punishment is inconsistent with such restora- 
tion, it cannot be meditated. 

The whole question of restoration is by some of its advo- 
cates hinged upon this idea, namely, that the Divine Governor 
must, in the punishment which, in justice, he inflicts, contem- 
plate the restoration of the sufferer. Thus, Dr Chauncy, ^' If 
the next state is a state of punishment not intended for the 
cure of the patients themselves, but to satisfy the justice of 
God, and to give warning to others, it is impossible that all men 
should finally be saved." This writer admits that if future 
punishment is merely to satisfy the justice of God and give 
warning to others, universal restoration will be impossible. 
But the opposite is assumed. It is aflirmed that justice must 
contemplate the restoration of the sufierer, the cure of the 
patient ; from which it is irresistibly inferred that they cannot 
be eternally punished. But we utterly deny the premiss. 
Justice has nothing to do with restoration ; its function is not 
curative. I appeal to your common idea of justice ; is this its 
function — to cure ? Is not this, on the contrary, to merge it into 
another attribute ? What is justice in the divine character ? 
It is that attribute by which God expresses his approbation of 
what is good, and his disapprobation of what is evil ; that 
attribute which gives to his creatures what they deserve. It 
rewards and punishes according to desert. It is utterly to 
misconceive the function of justice, to suppose that it must 
contemplate the ^^ cure of its patients.'' We say not that 
justice may not, in any case, contemplate good in its inflic- 
tions. It may contemplate good to spectators. It may be to 
them for a warning. But even this cannot be its main design. 



ETERNAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 16? 

It may be accidental result ; as such it may be anticipated and 
so contemplated. But justice could never have the good of 
one as its main object in punishing another. This would be 
unjustifiable and unjust. The punishment of one may be sub- 
ordinated as a voice of warning and instrument of discipline 
to another ; but it must have something else for its main de- 
sign, something else to justify it. Much less can justice di- 
rectly contemplate the good of the sinner whom it punishes. 
It is the guardian and defender of higher interests. It has 
to mark the divine abhorrence of sin. It expounds God's ha- 
tred of the sinner's guilt. Beyond this it has no province. 

In speaking upon this subject, those who hold the doctrine of 
universal restoration say, that our view represents the pun- 
ishment of the sinner as merely designed " to satisfy the jus- 
tice of God." They think this view so disparaging, that they 
expect us to reject the terms, and to set about finding somo 
other reason for punishment. But we reject them not. We 
accept them in all their breadth. They properly state and 
judge the case. Future punishment is to "satisfy the justice 
of God.'' It can have no less design ; it could have no 
higher. It is worthy of God to demand satisfaction. Let the 
case be more minutely considered, and this will appear. 

The divine character is implicated. How is God's love 
or goodness made known ? By his law, in which he proclaims 
its obligation upon all his creatures. How is God's hatred of 
sin made known ? By the penalties with which his law is 
armed. But when that law is violated, when those penalties 
are dared, when sin, the abominable thing which he hates, is 
committed, what resource is left ? How are his creatures to 
know his hatred ? How, but by the punishment which he in- 
flicts ? His character needs this defence. His justice claims 
this satisfaction. Thus only can he '' mark his view and sense 
of sin." I repeat, the character of God is implicated. He 
made this universe. When it sprung from his hand it was 
good; and it was designed as the abode of goodness. It was 
a work worthy of his perfection ; it was set apart to holiness. 
But sin perverted it. Its purest places were desecrated, its 
crowning grace and glory defaced. Is this perversion to be 
quietly allowed ? Is defiant sin to triumph over the universal 
ruler and his work ? Is nothing needed to be done to shew 



168 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that this was not the intention of creation ? " Needs the 
Creator of all no proof that he formed creation good, that he 
will maintain and establish his work?" What, then, is his 
defence? Justice with its penalties. To this defence justice 
girds itself. It claims satisfaction. It melts not with pity of 
the sufferer. It goes not about to compass his cure and res- 
toration. This is not its satisfaction. It punishes him for 
haying sinned. We shrink not then from maintaining, that 
the punishment of the sinner is to satisfy the justice of God; 
and that there could be no more entire misconception of the 
function of justice than that w^hich assigns to it the task of 
restoration and curing. 

But it is affirmed that it will become the part of justice to 
liberate and restore those whom it has punished; because in 
the course of their suffering they will become so convinced of 
the folly of sin, and in the theatre of their suffering will be £0 
cut off from opportunities of committing it, that they will re- 
turn to goodness. 

This is an entirely arbitrary assumption, and demands 
proof. I am convinced that it is utterly fallacious and inca- 
pable of proof, (a.) Let us remember what a return to 
goodness implies. It implies a change of the character — a 
change in all the habits, sympathies, and tastes. It is no- 
thing superficial. There must be a hatred of sin and a love 
of goodness. There must be a turning of the mind towards 
God in holy allegiance and pure love. An external reforma- 
tion is not sufficient. The law of God is spiritual, and re- 
quires the obedience of the spirit. God is omniscient, and 
looks to the state of the heart, (h.) A conviction of the folly 
of sin, when enduring its tremendous penal consequences, does 
not necessarily cause a hatred, or destroy all leaning to it. 
A disposition to commit sin may remain, even when the mind 
is most fully convinced of its folly. What sinner on the 
earth is not convinced of the folly of sin, when he is cut off 
for a season from the opportunity of committing it ? And yet 
how few are restrained from indulgence by this conviction, 
when the opportunity presents itself. Is there a single drunk- 
ard in the world who is not convinced of the folly of drunk- 
enness ; and yet how uninfiuential is the conviction ? We do 
not trust much to death-bed repentances. Why? Because 



i:ternal duration of future punishments. 169 

our experience teaches us to fear that the vows made in suffer- 
ing would be broken were health restored. Let the question 
then be put in view of these unquestionable facts, is there any 
fitness in the punishments which the condemned must endure 
at the hands of justice to restore them to goodness ? It will 
convince them of the folly of sin, but will it eradicate their 
taste for it? It is alleged that it will cut them off from the 
opportunity of committing it, and that the taste will natu- 
rally die out. But on what ground is it affirmed that they 
will have no opportunity of committing sin ? They will not 
be able to commit the same sins of which they were guilty on 
the earth, but so long as they are conscious, and can cherish 
an evil thought of God, they can sin. I wholly dissent from 
these views of hell which represent it as cutting off all o]3por- 
tunity of sinning. Is there not society there ? May not 
malice, and envy, and pride, and other evil passions and prin- 
ciples be cherished and expressed ? We cannot admit that 
it is even open to doubt, that there will be opportunity of com- 
mitting sin in the place of punishment. Instead, therefore, of 
expecting the taste for sin to die out, we may expect it to be- 
com.e stronger. Here, according to certain laws of the human 
constitution, sin gains upon the man. He first commits it 
under a temporary impulse ; then it becomes habitual, and at 
last characteristic. He becomes its slave. See the miser in 
death clutching his gold-bags. See the grey-haired sensualist 
panting for indulgence. In the other world the laws of the 
human constitution will be the same. There, as in this world, 
sin will have a fearfully self-perpetuating power. 

But is there any thing in the punishment there endured likely 
to soften the heart towards God ? Does the expectation that 
the punishment, such as shall be inflicted in the place of woe, 
will subdue and soften, and win the sufferers, consist with our 
knowledge of the human mind ? Is it not the fact that man is 
attracted rather by gentleness than severity ? Will not the 
man who stiffens into a more rigid attitude of opposition, when 
reproved or punished, be melted and gained by a word of 
kindness or a tear of sympathy ? Or is the man who has re- 
sisted tenderness, and love, and indulgence, likely to be gained 
by the frown and the scourge ? Verily no. We have no in- 
stance on record in the history of our race which will warrant 



170 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the expectation that the severities of hell will convert. If 
mere yieldiag when it was found that further resistance was 
vain would pass for conversion and a return to goodness, we 
might perhaps expect such results. But this to the eye of 
omniscience would be no change. What indication would 
that mind gi\;^e of a genuine return to goodness which merely 
consented to submit to the divine will because it felt omnipo- 
tence too strong for it ? Would not such grimace of good- 
ness, such pretence of conversion, be rejected by a Being who 
saw all the workings of the motive ? And what security would 
be given that one thus superficially changed would not, when 
liberated from his durance, return to actual sin ? In short, 
all our knowledge of man, and of the effect produced upon 
him by punishment and severity here, leads us to expect that 
the punishments of a future state will harden rather than sub- 
due. It is a vain hope which builds itself on the opposite 
supposition. Indeed I cannot conceive that there will be one 
consigned to that fearful doom who has not previously, under 
the disciplines of a probationary state, been proved to be in- 
corrigible. The question is already settled before their ulti- 
mate condemnation, that they will not return to God and 
goodness. They have been tried, they have been striven with, 
but they have remained stubborn. Their character is fixed, 
and it fixes their doom. 

This fixedness of character in the wicked must not be over- 
looked in its bearing upon the eternity of their punishment. 
In the place of their torments they will continue to sin. There 
they are still under law, still under obligation to do the will 
of God. From this no creature can ever be exempt. There 
eYevy unholy thought and desire will be sinful ; every act of 
opposition against truth and rectitude will be sinful ; and each 
sin will deserve punishment as it does in this state. They 
become in character worse and worse, and how should they be 
released from punishment ? Their depravity continues, how 
should the retribution terminate ? We cannot lose sight of 
this view. Some have regarded it as a virtual abandonment 
of the original ground assumed, namely, that sinners are con- 
signed to a state of eternal punishment for the sins committed 
on earth. This they say adds to the account the sins com- 
mitted in an after state, and changes the ground. Yet we 



ETERNAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. I7i 

cannot abandon it. Our original position was, that the im- 
penitent sinner is, at the close of his term of probation, 
consigned to a state of endless punishment. In this position 
there is not merely implied the idea that the sins which he 
committed on earth deserve such punishment, but that the 
character of incorrigible sinfulness which he has formed ne- 
cessitates it. He is not consigned to perdition merely because 
of the individual sins which he has committed — these might 
be pardoned him if he would yield — but because he is an in- 
corrigible and unyielding sinner. It is foreseen that he will 
not yield, that he will continue to sin, that so long as he lives 
he will be a sinner ; and he is cast into the congenial realms 
of darkness, where, so long as he lives and sins, he shall be 
punished. The Scripture doctrine of eternal punishments 
will, in this view, be nothing more than an expression of what 
our own reason might lead us to expect in the case. A man 
in this life sins, sins persistingly, sins against entreaty ; be- 
comes in all his habits, tastes, and tendings, a sinner ; proves 
under every discipline unbending and incorrigible ; he dies in 
this state ; in this state he is adjudged to suffer the penalty of 
the law which he has violated. How can it be otherwise than 
eternal in its duration since he is immortal ? 

But it is said, surely the Creator made all men to be happy. 
It is admitted, and not admitted only, but affirmed. And yet 
no one who reflects upon the matter can affirm that this was 
God's chief end in creating man. The chief end of all crea- 
tion must have been His Own glory. The happiness of the 
creature would be provided for under this condition. Some 
provision would be made to secure the divine glory. It is to 
be found in the law under which man was placed. It at once 
shed happiness down upon man, and threw glory up upon 
God. But the happiness to be derived from it was conditional 
— depended upon obedience. Man was made to be happy 
under the law. All his faculties were adapted to this. " Rea- 
son was to govern appetite, good-will to guide self-love, re- 
ligion to sanctify all." The law was the transcript of the 
divine love and goodness ; we can still, in studying it, see 
what was our original happiness. But man fell from that law, 
and in doing so fell from happiness. It was not that God 
withdrew from him the original blessings of his life, he with- 



172 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

drew from tliem. Uuhappiness is the natural consequence. 
The unhappiness of the law-breaker is the glory of the law- 
giver. It is his denouncement of sin, his defence against the 
charge of connivance, the intense expression of the hatred 
with which he contemplates wickedness. To argue abso- 
lutely from the goodness of God to the happiness of his 
creatures, therefore, as though the one necessarily flowed 
from the other, is inconclusive. The happiness of the 
creature depends upon his obedience to the Creator's law. 
The fact that the Creator designed man for happiness does 
not, moreover, argue any more strongly for his happiness 
in the future state than for his happiness in the present 
state. If the happiness of the creature must necessarily flow 
from the goodness of the Creator, we shall have the same dif- 
ficulty in explaining the misery actually endured by man in 
the present state, as the misery threatened against him in the 
future. The difference in degree affects not the principle. 
Before any knowledge of the state of matters in this world, 
we might argue that the creature of a perfectly good being 
must always be happy — that a world governed by a perfectly 
good Being must know nothing of misery and dispeace. But 
a knowledge of the present condition of man assures us of 
the futility of such reasoning. It cannot be more applicable 
to the future state than to this one. There the same God 
will reign, the same laws be enforced, and the same causes of 
misery exist. 

If it be aflSirmed that the Creator is bound to make his 
creatures happy — that he is bound to exert his omnipotence 
in order to their happiness — we can only observe that it is the 
desperate assertion of self-love. There is no law to counte- 
nance the supposition. It would involve a breaking down of 
the intrinsic barriers of the human constitution. It would 
rob man of his freedom of which many are so jealous. It 
would tarnish the honour of God, who, in order to make his 
creature happy, had first to unmake him, Man can be happy 
only under law, and the goodness of God is fully justified in 
the proclamation of a law fitted to give happiness. 

My space interdicts further enlargement. I here close my 
argument, more sensible perhaps than any of my auditors of 
its many imperfections. The subject I found, after I had 



ETERNAL DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 1/3 

commenced my preparations, all but Tinmanageable within the 
limits of a single lecture, unless the chief difficulties were to 
he entirely avoided, which method my respect for my own 
character and your intelligence, led me at once to reject. The 
attempt thus to compress has, I am aware, been unfavourable 
to lucidity and point. Whatever may be the force of the ar- 
gument on your minds, however, this I feel and must profess, 
that the investigations (too hurried and imperfect) which my 
preparations led me to make, have left a profound and in- 
delible impression on my mind of the truth of the Scripture 
doctrine, which asserts of the wicked in a future state, that 
" their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched." And 
I have felt it to be a fearful monitory consideration, as it 
were adjuring me by all that is desirable in the treasures of 
a peaceful conscience, and by all that is terrible in the tor- 
ments of despair, by all that is gladdening in the hope of life 
eternal, and by all that is heart-smiting in the prospect of 
eternal death, to live in earnest for my own well-being, and 
to cry aloud, and spare not, to my fellowmen, " Flee from the 
wrath to come." 



( 174 ) 



LECTURE IX. 

ON THE 

MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OFCHRISTIANlTy. 

BY THE EEV. J. R. M'GAVIN. 



Men, for the most part, are inclined to pronounce sentence 
upon religious sj^stems, according to the fruits which thej 
produce. Few persons are really competent to discuss ab- 
stract principles ; all are fond of facts, and are ready to 
challenge every creed to the application and proof of its 
powers, by asking what it has done, or is able to do, for the 
amelioration of man. 

The religious system which claims to be divine, is justly 
expected to reveal principles which not only reflect the in- 
finite excellence of their author, but which also secure the 
well-being of the race : it must commend itself to universal 
acceptance, by elevating the condition and character of man- 
kind, — correcting, if not curing, the evils of society, — and 
preparing for the unlimited improvement and ultimate per- 
fection of the species. If it be asked, where is the system 
that can realize this promise in rich results, and point to the 
evidence of its divine power in its blessed effects upon the 
race ? We answer, that Christianity invites this ordeal, and 
fearlessly abides the issue. It comes down to us as no up- 
start or experimental system, to charm us into untried novel- 
ties by the extravagance of its promises, and its chariness of 
performance. It has tried its powers on all fields, grappled 
with every form of opposition, and outlived all evils : the 
course of ages which has tested its strength and powers of 
endurance, has also certified its triumphs ; so that now, 
amidst innumerable assailant and antagonistic systems, and 



MORAL AXD SOCIAL BENEFITS OE CHRISTIANITY. Iv 5 

in spite of alien corruptions, which have usurped its name 
and defaced its glorj — Christianity, as yet only partial 
in its practical development, and elate with the conscious 
approach of universal victory, points to its past acliievements 
as the presage of richer accomplishment, and claims to he 
regarded beyond all rivals, as the pre-eminent vindicator of 
human rights, and avenger of human wrongs — the patron of 
enlightenment — the pioneer of enterprise — the protector of 
law — the defender of freedom — the guardian of human affec- 
tions and human happiness — the grand reformer of evils- — 
the best and undying friend of the race. 

This bold affirmation must be examined and confirmed, 
ere we allow the claim. It may be necessary, however, in 
the first instance, to limit and define the nature of our argu- 
ment, before we proceed to the proof. The evidence of the 
divine authority of a system, deduced from its beneficial 
tendency, is at the best a supplementary argument and can 
only be regarded as satisfactory and complete, under certain 
conditions. It must be sufficient, in the commencement of 
our inquiries, to prove a system to be true ; and, apart from 
the testimony of experience, it then demands our acceptance, 
on the strength of its accredited testimony. If, in addition, 
the tendency of its principles can be proved to be entirely 
adverse to evil, and favourable to virtue, then it may be ex- 
empted — in the outset at least — from all experimental proofs, 
and left to establish its reputation in the field of facts, by 
the course of events. Even where an opportunity has fairly 
existed for testing its virtues, we are not warranted to decide 
upon its divine authority, simply by the measure of its success. 
Many additional elements may require to enter into our cal- 
culation, so as to regulate our conclusion. It may be neces- 
sary, for instance, to estimate the force of resistance which 
these principles have to meet and to overcome, — to inquire 
whether that system, professing to be divine, proposed or 
expected to be at once universally successful ; and whether a 
system simply of truth — which scorns all appliances of coer- 
cion, and conquers only by the force of argument and convic- 
tion — could win its way immediately to universal dominion, 
without violating the very nature of truth and conviction, 
and destroying the moral freedom of man. 



176 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

A calm and philosophical answer to these inquiries, we 
are convinced, v/ill entirely exonerate Christianity from the 
charge of miserable failure, which is sometimes scornfully 
advanced against it, by its opponents. They point us to 
fields of fallow and unbroken heathenism, — to the misery and 
the odious crimes which crowd and fester in the heart of 
professedly Christian communities; — to the glaring inconsis- 
tencies of many professors, and the imperfections of the most 
sincere ; — and we are told — in language sometimes sufficiently 
pungent — that if the object of the gospel was the recovery of 
man from sin, and if its efforts, after a trial of nearly two 
thousand years, have been so partial and incomplete, then 
their conclusion is triumphant, that Christianity has lament- 
ably come short of its aim, and that the liberality of its 
promise has been frustrated by the poverty of the accom- 
plishment. 

Whatever apparent force this objection possesses in the 
opinion of those who urge it, we unhesitatingly maintain that 
it is founded on entire misconception of the case. First of 
all, we demur to the competency of the objector to decide in 
this matter. An unbeliever refuses to admit the gospel into 
his own heart, so as to realize its personal effects on his own 
experience. If Christianity proposes a peace of mind which 
he refuses to feel, and works in the heart a spiritual change 
to which he refuses to submit, then there is a large field of 
its effects of which he knows nothing whatever ; and it is at 
least presumptuous in him to pronounce upon a matter of ex- 
perience in entire and willing ignorance of the case. The 
religion of the gospel is pre-eminently personal and spiritual 
in its operations, — its special seat of dominon is in the heart ; 
and therefore some of its sweetest and best experience lies 
apart from public inspection, and is realized in secret life. 
True piety may require to veil its virtues in self-defence 
from the blight and pollution of an ungodly world ; but, like 
the night-flower, it will unfold its richest beauties, and shed 
its sweetest fragrance in the shade. We must follow it into 
its closet to understand its nature, and to know its most 
blessed effects. The Christian /g^Zs that, v/here none but God 
:ind himself are present, that gosj)el has brought peace to his 
distracted heart ; it has crucified his evil habits, breathed 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. l77 

precious consolation to him amid all his afflictions, and formed 
him into the love and practice of holiness, and preparation 
for heaven ; and ere any man can be qualified to decide upon 
the reality or power of such experience, he must himself have 
submitted to these influences, and felt these effects ; in short, 
he must have ceased to be an unbeliever. 

But to what does this charge of failure, alleged to attach 
to Christianity, amount ? Plainly interpreted, it only means 
that the gospel has not as yet accomplished every thing, and 
restored the world, at this stage of its history, to sinless ex- 
cellence. It may be a sufficient answer to this statement to 
notice, that Christianity has never proposed or promised any 
such summary recovery of mankind, and therefore it can 
never be blamed for what it does not allow. It regards the 
universal depravity of man as too deep-seated and inveterate, 
to be easily eradicated ; and, on its own principles, the sur- 
prise of Christians is not that, in a world of such wide-spread 
and obstinate wickedness, so few are saved ; as that any are 
saved at all. If it be affirmed that God might, by a decisive 
stroke of omnipotence, destroy sin, and renovate the race, — 
what is this but to say, that He might destroy the moral 
nature and free agency of man, and thus annihilate the whole 
present system ? The gospel repudiates all such abrupt and 
arbitrary process ; it works by the kindly power of persuasion 
and argument ; it honours man, even in his debasement, by 
appealing to the enlightened convictions of his immortal 
mind. Thus the gospel advances by slow and gradual pro- 
gress ; — ages must elapse before its effects can be fairly de- 
veloped ; — it may be liable to many partial arrests and in- 
terruptions ; but it is satisfactory to know that it has predicted 
and prepared us for these impediments ; — that its results are 
at least fully equal to what it has taught us to expect ; and 
that, up to the present moment, it feels no failure, and fears 
no defeat ; as it confidently looks forth to futurity to silence 
all detraction, — to supplant every opposing system, and to 
extend its benignant and blessed supremacy in millennial glory 
around the globe. 

But may not this charge of failure — so boldly advanced 
against Christianity, and so easily foiled, by a proper position 
of the case — be made to recoil, with retributive force, on the 

NO. XII. 



1 78 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

heads of the opponents who wield it? Have the systems of 
Infidelity, it may be asked, not been tried in the field of the 
world's experience, and what have been their practical fruits ? 
Have they charmed the world, by their talismanic touch, into 
an instantaneous elysium of virtue and blessedness ? Have 
they mitigated one form of the malignant vices of man's 
nature, or alleviated the bitterness of his woe ? The world- 
wide experience, in the voice of all past ages, emphatically 
answers, No ! Where are we to look for the beneficial effects 
of the systems which would destroy the gospel ? Shall we 
turn to the systems of ancient sages, to find — as in the writ- 
ings or reminiscences of Plato and Socrates, those master- 
minds of heathen morality — the shameless and familiar per- 
petration of vices, which Christian communities would shudder 
to name ? Shall we call back the code of ancient nations 
with their shocking infanticides, their brutal wars, their le- 
galized and daily murders, their systematic violation of the 
marriage tie, and unbridled and abominable licentiousness ? 
Are we to invoke the presence and practices of modern savage 
life, where the favourite ''children of simplicity,'' as some 
recent enemies of Christianity designate them, hold up models 
for our imitation — that we may gloat in the ferocity of their 
cannibal cruelties, and descend into the brutal debasement of 
their- domestic indecency. Or are we to rehearse the history 
of the self-entitled "reformed France" at that signal epoch 
of her history when infidelity was proclaimed by public edict, 
and the national convention avowedly resolved to diffuse 
atheism over the world ; — when Reason was deified throughout 
its provinces, and abandoned women were exposed in their 
churches as the shameless representatives of their goddess ; — 
when all moral and social ties that bound the human family 
together were torn asunder ; and civil power seemed to riot 
only in the perpetration of wholesale murders, aad to ring 
the knell of liberty, by summoning it to its doom. 

These have been the native fruits of the absence or the 
banishment of revelation from mankind; and the gospel needs 
not to be ashamed of the contrast which its effects disclose, 
in the face of the thousand systems which oppose its claims. 
It must be borne in mind that in this appeal to results, by 
conflicting principles, Christianity has to contend against 



MORAL AXD SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 170 

fearful odds. She stands single-handed and alone, while the 
name of her enemies is Legion, for they are many : she has 
withstood the assaults of ages, alike unchanged and unchange- 
able ; while the endless series of her assailants have shifted 
incessantly with the course of ages, to attract by their untried 
novelties, and to renew their fresh attacks. If, in the face of 
these unfair disadvantages, Chrisrianity has sustained, without 
shrinking, the unequal strife ;- — if this system, which repudiates 
the aids of all civil power, and owns no weapons save those of 
truth, has yet survived all this opposition, and seems destined 
to outlive it; — if in its ''morning march" it has exploded 
the superstitions of ages, and breathed over the nations a 
more benignant law, which has subdued former ferocities, 
and alleviated the woes of the race ; — if it has wandered into 
all fields of life, to unbind debasement from the hearts and 
homes of men, and to diffuse the blessings of intelligent re- 
finement and freedom ; — if, at this moment, it heaves with 
the mighty pulsations of a boundless and unwearied bene- 
volence which lives to achieve the universal renovation of 
man ; — then are we not entitled to claim for Christianity an 
unrivalled place among all systems, and to proclaim her 
praises as the noblest and best benefactor of the species ? 

This conclusion must be verified and confirmed by the 
force of united argument and illustration ; and we invite your 
patient and candid attention to the following statement of 
evidence, 

T. Christianity claims for the whole faraily of men the 
possession of a common immortal nature, and in this respect 
earns the unshared distinction of asserting the universal 
dignity and natural rights of the race. Mankind, descend- 
ing from a common parentage, have long since wandered into 
great diversities of condition and mental development, and 
settled into almost endless varieties of race. Differences of 
condition and climate have created distinctions of colour, 
features, and temperament, which have become more marked 
by the lapse of ages, and have been aggravated by various 
circumstances into hereditary causes of mutual alienation and 
estrangement. Some nations, fostered by the presiding and 
beneficial presence of religion and letters, have risen into 
refinement and civilization ; while others, unblessed by these 



180 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

advantages, have sunk from the common level, into the lowest 
depths of savage debasement. Philosophy and false religion, 
throughout the whole course of history, so far from seeking 
to correct these evils, or to modify these artificial causes of 
estrangement, have diligently endeavoured to add intenseness 
to mutual animosities, and to render impassable the gulph 
that separated distinct races. The strong were taught to 
trample upon the defenceless ; the educated looked down with 
supercilious disgust upon the illiterate, until the earth became 
filled with deeds of lawless violence ; man learned to regard 
his fellow man as his inferior, and claimed the monstrous 
power to hold him in bondage ; — and whole tribes of men 
were systematically devoted to hopeless abandonment and 
merciless extermination, as if they had been formed only to 
be the victims of mercenary cruelty, and to be hunted down 
as dangerous beasts of prey. Amidst the frightful miseries 
beneath which the whole creation for ages has groaned, when 
did philosophy or superstition ever stand forth, as the advocate 
of the race, to defend the rights of the oppressed, and to rid 
them from the hand of the spoiler ? On the contrary, it has 
formed part of every system of religion, save Christianity, to 
degrade man, and to encourage oppression. Even the refined 
Cicero, with all his boasted morality, was the systematic 
abettor of slavery, and advises his friend Atticus not to pro- 
cure his slaves from Britain, " because they were so besotted 
and utterly incapable of being taught." So absurdly has this 
spirit of detraction by man against his kind increased, that 
Infidelity, not many years ago, soberly represented in the per- 
son of a Scottish judge, has gravely declared that man is but 
an improvement upon the breed of monkeys ; and whole tribes 
of human beings have been solemnly pronounced by this ad- 
mirable expounder of law, as but one short remove from that 
original type of the race. 

In contradistinction to all these slanders against our com- 
mon nature, the religion of the Scriptures stands forth to vin- 
dicate the natural dignity and rights of universal humanity. 
Its solitary voice has been lifted up to proclaim the grand 
fundamental truth, that "God hath made of one blood all na- 
tions of men, to dwell in the face of all the earth." It finds 
no man '' guilty of the colour of a skin ;" where all are human, 



MORAL AXD SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIAXITY. 181 

it breathes no exclusion, and makes no exceptions ; as it goes 
forth to unite man into the blessedness of unlimited brother- 
hood, and to consecrate the world with the glories of univer- 
sal liberty. How has the gospel sped in the fulfilment of 
these high aims? Almost every nation of the earth rises up 
to attest its benignant mission, and the power of its emanci- 
pation. Britain — now the mistress of the nations and the 
guardian power of human enlightenment and freedom — owes 
it to Christianity alone that she has been delivered from her 
former debasement of brutal ignorance and bloody supersti- 
tion, to occupy her present exalted station of dignity and 
power. Greenland has acknowledged the genial influences of 
the gospel, which has delivered her sons from a degradation 
darker than her own dread winter ; and has planted amidst 
her everlasting snows the comforts of civilization as well as 
the consolations of religion. The islands of the vast Pacific 
Ocean spread forth, beneath their cloudless sky, scenes of moral 
beauty and peacefulness, which reveal the triumphs of the 
gospel in their happy liberation, from the most abominable 
licentiousness and brutal cannibalism. From the backwoods 
and prairies of the far west, copper-coloured races are found, 
which the Christian missionary has saved from utter extinc- 
tion, and converted into the virtuous and godly sons of indus- 
try and enterprise. And even the Hottentot — that proscribed 
outlaw from his species, whom some philosophers have repre- 
sented as a libel upon our kind^ and as a mere mimic and 
burlesque representation of the race — has risen to feel himself 
for the first time to be a man, under the reclaiming genius of 
the gospel, and to assert the intellectual greatness and moral 
power which once he was denied under sterner religions, and 
a less kindly philosophy. 

But where are we to stop in reckoning the philanthropic 
labours of Christianity ? Into what inhospitable region has 
it not penetrated ? From what scene of human degradation 
has it turned away ? It has been stayed by no difficulty, it 
has scrupled at no sacrifice, it has shrunk under no disparage- 
ment and reproach, from seeking to renew the character and 
to bless the condition of mankind. It has come from its na- 
tive skies in the person of its great author, to dignify and re- 
deem man's nature from all its degradation and thraldom ; 



182 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and wherever its footsteps have trode, like its divine archi- 
type, it has wrought miracles of mercy and deliverance. Na- 
tions, discovered by its enterprise and preserved under its 
guardianship, have renounced their roaming and lawless habits, 
for the settled pursuits of industry and peace. War has lost 
its fiendish cruelties in its presence, and where it could not 
sheathe its sword_, it has at least humanized its use. Millions 
of once enslaved hordes now stand, with broken fetters and 
swelling hearts, to bless its name for their deliverance. And 
still it seeks, with " an eye that never winks, and a wing that 
never wearies,'' to wander forth for the healing of the nations, 
to claim man for its own, as it exalts him, without distinctions 
of rank or race, into the dignity of its exalted virtue, and the 
happiness of its imperishable inheritance. 

If it be said that still misery survives in the scenes of 
richest Christianity, and that deeds have been done in its 
name, that savour rankly of guilt and oppression, — this is but 
to affirm, that inveterate evils will be found to linger even be- 
side a healing dispensation which comes to correct and to cure 
them, just as most noxious weeds will continue to spring in 
the most richly cultivated garden. Xor is it to be denied that 
deeds have been done in the name of Christianity which its 
holy spirit repudiates and abhors. But surely no sound rea- 
soner would impute to a system the existence of evils, which 
continue in spite of and in direct antagonism to its nature. If 
you could prove that the religion of the gospel either sanc- 
tioned these evils or sheltered them, then might the imputed 
opprobrium rest upon it. But if, as its precepts shew, it de- 
nounces all guilt, and is the uncompromising enemy of all un- 
righteousness, then let no blame on this ground rest upon it 
henceforth for ever. 

It may still belong to modern infidelity to hazard the bold 
assertion, that " Christianity is a public injury, and has been 
a benefit to no nation that has adopted it.'' The recklessness 
of such statements — not only destitute of all proof, but in the 
face of all existing testimony — can only recoil on the party who 
advances them. Every fact of history establishes, that while 
grossest corruptions have usurped the name of pure Christi- 
anity, just as expert swindlers will assume the address and 
appearance of the best members of society, to gain success to 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 183 

their schemes ; still even the most impure forms of nominal 
Christianity have been proved to be better for society than 
the absence of all religion ; for the same reason that almost 
any kind of government is more safe for mankind than the 
absence of all law, and the frightful confusion of anarchy. 
The existence of pure religion in a country can only be an un- 
mixed good, just as the loss of it is an unalleviated calamity ; 
for •* even our enemies themselves being judges," it is affirmed, 
in the words of a late eloquent opponent of Christianity, that 
" if all were perfect Christians, individuals would do their 
duty — the people would be obedient to the laws — the chiefs 
just, the magistrates incorrupt — and there would be neither 
vanity nor luxury in such a state." 

II. The religion of the Bible is the author, or at least the 
chief patron of literature ; and in this respect has proved it- 
self to be the friend of human Jcnowledge and enlightenment. 
Human language could scarcely have had less than a divine 
origin. This seems deducible from the well-established fact, 
that we learn our powers of speech by imitation, and wherever 
such opportunities are wanting, the use of articulate speech is 
unknown. If we owe oral language thus to divine revelation, 
much more is it certain at least that we are indebted to it for 
written forms of speech. After all the investigations of the 
most learned men, it seems to be agreed, that the writing on the 
two tables of stone which were given by God to Moses, is the 
first instance of this mode of communication on record ; and it is 
indubitable that the sacred Scriptures are, by many ages, the 
most ancient writings extant. This gives the Bible a prece- 
dence of priority, which their contents still farther claim on the 
ground of excellence. We speak not simply of the literary 
merit of the Scriptures, which, even in this modern age, stand 
confessedly unmatched by all the efforts of genius, alike for 
the sublimity, and variety, and power of their contents. But 
we especially mark the transcendant value of their truths, 
which are the most momentous that can occupy the thoughts 
of men ; which carry us up to heights of holy discovery to 
which science in her proudest flights never deigned to soar ; 
and set their humblest disciple down in homely converse with 
loftiest attainments, which never flashed, amidst all their 
studies, upon the noblest intellects of ancient sages. In addi- 



184 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tlon to this native and suj)erlative excellence of the Scrip- 
tures, the history of all ages attests that wherever Scripture 
trath came, it formed an ark for the preservation of all use- 
ful knowledge ; it stimulated men's minds to inquiry after 
truth ; and opened up fields of richest investigation, in which 
they might roam and expatiate, and feel themselves exalted, to 
come back laden with happiest discoveries, and stand confessed 
the masters of nature's noblest secrets. It has accordingly been 
ever found that the knowledge of languages has always been 
the close and intimate companion of Scripture. Learning has 
gathered around the Christian system to do it homage, and 
found, in darkest times, an asylum in its sanctuaries. Even 
amidst the gloom of the middle ages, literature, driven from 
public places, found refuge in the cloister ; and corrupt as this 
last hold was proved to be, its presence served greatly to mo- 
dify the mischiefs of the system, and to relieve the prevailing 
darkness. When the Reformation came, religion proved the 
ruling impulse to arouse the human intellect to exertion, and 
took the lead in the noble enlargement of human discoveries. 
*^ Arts and sciences have been its constant attendant, and fol- 
lowed closely in its train." It has received devout obeisance 
from the greatest minds of modern discovery — from Bacon, 
and Milton, and Newton, who were kindled by its elevating 
influences into their loftiest creations of thought, and came 
back to lay the tribute of their richest attainments at its feet. 
Even in our own day, it cannot be denied that the highest 
walks of knowledge are largely occupied by Christian men, 
and that learning, like liberty, seeks refuge where religion 
dwells. Has not the missionary zeal of modern Christianity 
outrun the sons of gain in exploratory enterprise, and brought 
back the largest accessions of latest times to interesting truth 
of every variety ? Chronology, geography, botany, natural 
history, have yielded their richest spoils of late years in mis- 
sionary fields, to be gathered by Christian men. It has been 
reserved, also, for the sam-e parties to earn the honourable 
distinction of mastering the difficulties of the almost innumer- 
able dialects, into which tbe language of men has been dis- 
parted — of discovering the key of cognate systems of speech, 
and revealing the secret affinities of human expression — of 
reducing to writing the hitherto unwritten tongues of heathen 



MORAL AXr> SOCIAL BEXEFITS OF CHHISTIAXITY. 186 

utterance, and opening up, in fields all untrodden and inac- 
cessible before, to heathen minds the glories of truth and 
wisdom — of teaching the untutored savage to " receive the in- 
struction of wisdom, justice, and judgment," and to rise into 
the fellowship of noblest minds and the possession of kindred 
attainments — until the curse of Babel has been all but repealed 
by their efforts, and Christianity has almost woke the world's 
discordant voices into the wondrous harmony of its truth. 
This is a theme of grateful boasting, of which no opponent can 
rob the religion of the Bible ; it stands palpable and apparent 
to universal view ; and yet, what is all this, but the voice of 
Christianity proclaiming to mankind, that it flings open the 
gates of universal knowledge, and invites every one to walk 
abroad at liberty through its boundless ranges — that it impels 
man on in the paths of truth, to endless progress and improve- 
ment ; until it send him forth to fill his utmost capacities for 
ever, where angels stoop to drink their blessedness, before the 
celestial throne, at its exhaustless and uncreated spring. 

Yet it has always been a favourite taunt with opponents of 
Christianity, that it is a system of priestcraft, designed to re- 
tain men in superstition, and under the power of spiritual 
thraldom. " Our soul is exceedingly filled with this contempt 
and scorn;" and it maybe supposed that, as an interested 
party, I am disqualified to deal with what may be understood 
to be a personal objection. The charge sits lightly upon my 
own heart, although it would be well content to bear it, if I 
could thereby only exonerate a religion, which is infinitely 
more precious than all personal considerations ; and remove a 
grievous stumbling-block which obstructs the everlasting hap- 
piness of many precious souls. May I be permitted, in all 
sincerity, to say, in the name of the Christian ministry, that 
the gospel acknowledges no priests ; the office perished with 
a former dispensation, and is occupied only now by the author 
of revelation himself. It allows, indeed, teachers of religion, 
as every other science ; but their province is simply expository. 
They have no exclusive authority, they carry no key of secret 
truth ; the Scriptures which they explain are equally the pro- 
perty of every other man, and form the only standard of ap- 
peal in religion. If there be any class " of men who claim 
higher functions, Christianity disowns the assumption as 



186 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

equally presumptuous and profane. Even apostles would 
have repudiated another province : they say, " not that we 
have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy." 
What after all is the office of the Christian ministry ? So 
far from narrowing and repressing human enlightenment, its 
aim is the very reverse : it invites men to investigation, and 
impels them to the study of truth. I speak in the spirit of 
the Christian religion — a religion which, whatever opponents 
may say, who have not proved it, does remove every fetter 
from the immortal mind, and invests thought with widest free- 
dom — '' let every man be free to think as he is to breathe, I 
make no exceptions." Let your faith be formed on no human 
authority, and bow to no human rule. Assert the rights of 
personal individual judgment in your enquiries after truth ; 
and let no man come between your conscience, and the great 
God who is its only judge. But 0, in all, in the unfettered 
freedom of your soul, follow intently after truth : examine its 
evidences, listen to its voice, learn its convictions, live ac- 
cording to its dictates. Let the liberty of your investigations 
lead you right on to the throne of the Eternal, and bring you 
into heart- searching intercourse with God ; and prove that 
while you rise above the mists of prejudice, and the fetters of 
superstition, it is that you may submit your soul to the deci- 
sion of the sovereign Judge, and be a disciple of true faith at 
liis feet. This, and this only, is true Christianity ; and let 
the world point us, if it be able, to a holier freedom or truer 
enlightenment. 

III. The religion of the Bible has been the guardian of 
koine, the protector and defence of all domestic virtues and 
endearments ; and, in this respect, has proved itself to be the 
best friend of human sympathies and affections. Home is a 
name which stirs a thousand tender associations in every hu- 
man heart. It rises to our view, or lives in our recollections, 
as the birth-place of our being, the shelter of our early years, 
the sanctuary of our holiest affections, the choicest asylum of 
our sympathies, the hiding-place of our tears, and the altar of 
sweetest devotions. The echo of its happy voices falls upon 
our ear as the sweetest music of life ; its circle contains within 
it the fondest and best affections on earth ; and there is no 
virtuous nature which does not turn to it, from all the world 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BEIsTlFITS OF CHRISTIAKITY. 187 

besides, as the nursery of holiest sentiment and the safeguard 
of purest morality. 

The system therefore which has become popular of late 
years among many parties, of placing virtue in a love for the 
general good, in contradistinction to private affections, is 
really as contrary to true philosophy, as it is untrue to the 
higher instincts of nature ; seeing it is simply impossible that 
we can love all mankind alike, without the means of reaching 
their acquaintance, and forming the sentiment towards them 
out of which true virtue grows. Love is a principle which in 
a finite being must, like its possessor, have location ; it 
must fix its roots, and extract its nourishment from some na- 
tive soil. " In order to render men benevolent, you must first 
form them into tenderness ; for benevolent affections result 
from that culture of the heart, which the endearments of do- 
mestic life only are sure to supply, and of which it is the best 
possible school." "We can only advance from private to public 
affections. The order of nature in this case is to enlarge it- 
self outwards on every side ; and we rise, from the love of 
offspring or parents to those more comprehensive affections 
which embrace the species. Thus the Christian system con- 
sorts with the true philosophy of nature, by forming the hu- 
man home as a centre, in which love may fix and enlarge itself, 
and from which it radiates, until it finds its circumference only 
within the limits of the race. We have to seek therefore in 
the right formation and government of the domestic affections 
for the true realization of all social good, since, according to 
the Christian law, as well as the testimony of all experience, 
" the purest affections and the most sacred duties are grafted 
on the stock of our strongest instincts." The pre-eminent ex- 
cellence of Christianity in promoting the social good of man 
may be revealed and confirmed by the following brief consi- 
derations. 

The gospel has proved itself to be the hest friend of tvoman, 
by sustaining her rights, exalting her character, and assigning 
to her a happy and appropriate sphere, so as to render 
her the ornament and blessing of social life ; and in this an 
especial benefit of the Christian religion is apparent. It is a 
characteristic fact of striking significance, that while the gos- 
pel avowedly honours and defends the gentler sex, every other 



188 EVIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

system in the world has emphatically dishonoured and degraded 
woman. The morality of ancient heathens and modern deists 
reveals, either that they never knew woman's worth, or that 
tliey could not discover her appropriate place in the social 
system. The world at lar^e is witness to the fact, that where- 
ever Christianity is unknown or denied, females are degraded 
to the lowest position in the social scale, and become the vic- 
tims of grossest outrage. We dare not speak the history of 
female experience in a heathen land. Decency would blush 
to name realities, and humanity shudders at the idea. Think 
of the millions of annual murders of female offspring in 
heathen countries — four thousand being sacrificed every year 
in the single city of Pekin ; think of the surviving rem- 
nant being reared regularly as marketable commodities 
only for purposes of nameless disgrace. Think of the hea- 
then wife — if wife she can be called, who is robbed of a 
woman's rights, and privileges, and honour — the slave of the 
establishment, the drudge of every menial service, the victim 
of an unnatural partner's lawless lust and unbridled ferocity, 
having no protector in her wrongs, no refuge in her despair, 
save in the dreadful and familiar alternative of suicide. It is 
easy to conceive the shocking condition of social life where 
such evils prevail. Home becomes a word unknown, or signi- 
ficant only of dissension, and misery, and crime. The ties of 
nature are ruptured at the centre, and society is turned into 
a scene of lawless anarchy and brutal violence. And yet these 
are but the native fruits of female debasement, and reveal 
faintly the frightful consequences that flow from the absence 
of benignant Christianity in any land. 

If it be said that the features of female character are dififer- 
ent and improved, vvhere the refinements of civilization exist 
even apart from Christianity. We answer that it is difficult to 
find any country where Christianity and civilization are en- 
tirely separated ; they are usually twin-sisters that dwell to- 
gether, and are nourished from the same parent source. But 
we demur to the idea, that female character has been sustained 
in its purity, and revealed in its richest grace where the gospel 
is withdrawn. We have a painful confirmation of our worst 
fears on this subject, in the recent exhibitions given by the 
female socialists in France. There we find women deserting 
their homes, haranguing public political clubs, mingling in 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 189 

public tumults, and inciting to civil war. Xay, if the publie 
prints are to be believed, we find these so called reformed spe- 
cimens of their class, foremost in the scenes of civil confusion 
and blood, poisoning the wine of the soldiers, mangling the 
bodies of the wounded, and tearing the quiyering flesh of their 
A ictims with their teeth. "When we reflect on the ^vretched 
homes from which such females can issue, and the horrid com- 
panionship which such characters must create, we turn from 
the contemplation of these scenes with loathing and abhor- 
rence, and feel grateful that our own country has as jet been 
saved from the infliction of such a domestic curse. 

Rather let us view the representation of female excellence 
which the gospel seeks to form. Reared in scenes of virtue, 
her childhood is significant of future grace, and throws a sof- 
tening and tender infmence over the home that shelters her. 
The maiden ripens into excellence, of which external beauty 
is but the least attraction, and reveals intellectual refinement 
and moral worth, which commands respect by its modesty, and 
by its purity repels and awes rudeness in its presence. Vrhen 
the matron cares and claims are exchanged for the leisure of 
earlier years, home increases its comforts under her charge, 
and relaxes its cares under her smile. She becomes the guar- 
dian of infancy, the ministering angel of sicliness, and the stay 
in the hour of death. '' Her husband is known in the gates, 
when he sitteth among the elders of the people ; her children 
arise up and call her blessed;" and society, as it rejoices in her 
presence, which forms the ornament and glory of social life — 
is called to honour the religion which has formed vroman into 
such distinguished virtue, and fitted her to her sphere. 

The inviolahility of the marriage comjpact is another bles- 
sing which we owe to the Bible. The original law of social 
life which the Scriptures reveal, and which has come down to 
us, as one of the few institutions which belonged to a state of 
innocence, is not only the spring of all social happiness ; it is 
also the bulwark of public morality. It cannot be denied, that 
the religion of the Scriptures, which has proclaimed, from the 
first, the original law of the marriage compact, has also been 
the faithful and strictest guardian of its inviolability. Every 
other system which has respected the marriage vow, has bor- 
rowed its lessons from Scripture record or tradition : but the 



190 EVIDENCES OE CHRISTIANITY. 

larger portion of antagonistic systems have either violated its 
sacredness or relaxed its strictness. In proportion as you re- 
cede from revelation, you find the glory and purity of connu- 
bial life to disappear ; and mark that dangerous and disgust- 
ing state of society, in which frequent divorce, polygamy, 
adultery, reveal their frightful familiarity, to pollute public 
morals, outrage common decency, and destroy the peace of the 
human family. If therefore we respect the sacredness of vir- 
tue, and the sanctity of our homes ; if we would defend the 
purity of the female character, and preserve inviolate our do- 
mestic affections, we are bound to honour and to bless the reli- 
gion of the gospel, that keeps heavenly watch over these precious 
interests ; and, in a world of abounding iniquity, preserves us 
from the irruption of lawless licentiousness that would dese- 
crate our holiest sentiments, and turn home into an earthly 
hell. 

Again, the religion of the Scriptures secures our richest so- 
cial good, in consecrating the parentctl tie, and guarding the 
sacred season of youth. The love of offspring forms one of 
the strongest and best instincts of human nature. It asks no 
aids of philosophy to inculcate its claims ; it needs no maxims 
of morality to enforce it, because it finds usually a tender re- 
sponse in every parent's bosom, too deep for the principles of 
stoicism to obliterate or corrupt. And yet the sanctions of 
religion are not unnecessary to regulate and sanctify this do- 
mestic feeling. We have only to look abroad upon life, 
wherever the religion of Scripture is disregarded or unknown, 
to learn that " even a woman may forget her sucking child, 
that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb." 
Need we remind you of the systematic infanticides of heathen 
lands, of the nameless numerous corpses of new-born children 
found floating in the Seine at Paris, and the occasional aban- 
donment of children by profligate parents in our own country, 
to prove that the absence or rejection of the gospel — at least 
when associated with licentiousness, as it frequently is — leads 
to the blunting of parental feeling, and makes man a monster 
to his own offspring. 

In beautiful contrast to all this, the gospel is seen to act, as 
it restrains the excess of parental fondness, and elevates this 
domestic relation into a charge for eternity. How does it | 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 1 

sanctify a parent's feeling to think that an immortal being 
looks forth in the unconscious gaze of that little one that lies 
folded in a mother's bosom, which asks guardianship through 
a dangerous life, and a fitting education for the skies. How 
does it solemnize a parent's charge to pour out the eloquence 
of its unutterable love, in prayer on behalf of its tender care — 
to watch its dawning intellect, and deposit amidst life's first 
impressions the fear of God and obedience to his will — to 
check incipient evils in the bud, and interfuse with the enlarge- 
ment of all childhood's powers habits of devotion and virtue. 
sweetest amidst all life's earliest recollections, is the holy 
love, around which our sapling sympathies were entwined, as 
we grew up under its overshadowing care ; which taught us to 
bend our knee beside its own, to find in the divine love of our 
common parent in heaven, the impulse and enlargement of all 
that is holy, and beautiful, and good ; and surely blessed, above 
all, is that religion which keeps watch thus by the opening 
scenes of life, and provides such a parental guardianship, as 
sheds a sanctifying and happy influence over all its future 
course — so lovely as never to be superseded, so strong that it 
cannot die. 

If we simply advert to the gospel regard for old age, we 
complete the picture of its domestie benefits. The advance of 
years, which brings with it many infirmities, necessarily ren- 
ders old age dependant upon the kind offices of others. Any 
system of religion is essentially defective, which would leave 
the hoary head to the precarious support or neglect of unprin- 
cipled inclination. We have sufficient evidence in the system- 
atic and universal conduct of heathen or non-Christian na- 
tions, as to what would be the fate of infirm old age, if the 
sanctions of religious guardianship w^ere withdrawn. Tt is no- 
torious that human nature — if left to its own inclinations — 
has not sufficient virtue or natural affection, to venerate and 
sustain advanced years. If you go to any country where the 
Scriptures are unknown, and ask where are the venerable sur- 
vivors of a former generation, alas, their children will tell you, 
without a shudder or sense of shame, — that so soon as they were 
unable to provide for their own wants, their own offspring 
bore them to the howling wilderness, and — deaf to all their en- 
treaties, — left them alone to die the lingering death of famine, 



i 92 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

or to be devoured bj the beasts of prey. Wherefore is our 
own country free from the curse and stigma of this unnatural 
crime ? but because of the presence of a religion which would 
chase and scourge such monstrous cruelty from its presence, 
and which spreads a couch of kindly guardianship and care, to 
bless the closing scenes of human decay. 

We perceive then that the religion of Scripture — amidst its 
other claims — especially preserves and blesses the homes of 
men. It equally sanctifies and gladdens life's beginning, and 
hallows its season of decline ; it interweaves itself with all the 
tenderest sympathies of our nature, to purify and bless them, 
and encompasses the whole path of life with the sacred secu- 
rities of virtue, and the fullest enjoyment of all social good. 
On these grounds we feel warranted to commend a religion 
which has revealed and certified such benefits to the devout 
homage and grateful afiTection of every human heart. 

IV. The religion of the gospel has extended its henefits to 
society, inasmuch as it has propounded the laws by which it 
is to be regulated, sustained the virtues by which it is to be 
preserved, and difiPused the bene violence by which alone it can 
be blessed ; and in this respect it has proved itself to be pre- 
eminently the friend of human freedom, and peace, and hap- 
piness. Christianity has found man a social being, and it pre- 
eminently fits him for this sphere of his existence, by difiPusing 
its own atmosphere of kindness over all the relations of life, 
and forming society into a nicely-woven texture of mutual 
dependance and charity. The tender sympathies which it 
rears and matures in the home, form a benevolent spirit which 
must be carried out into the world along with its possessor, to 
soften asperities, to subdue selfishness, to create a spiritual 
commerce of mercy and love ; and to bless the race with richest 
examples of the most enlightened patriotism, and enlarged 
philanthropy. These effects are distinctly apparent among 
the nations of the world, alike in the direct and reflex influ- 
ences of the gospel. It must, however, be borne in mind, 
that Christianity is a personal and spiritual religion, which 
properly reigns only in the hearts that really embrace it. 
National Christianity is, therefore, nothing else than a fic- 
tion, so long as the persons composing that nation are not 
converted men ; because a nation can be no otherwise in the 



MORAL A.ND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 193 

Sight of God than are the individual members of which it is 
formed. It is seldom, therefore, that real personal Chris- 
tianity has ever given laws to a state, for, with some illustri- 
ous exceptions, the early taunt of opponents might be repeated 
through all subsequent ages,—*' have any of the rulers believed 
on Him 5" The influence of the gospel on states has thus 
been silent and gradual, arising from the moral power and 
presence of holy men within them ; which have served to re- 
strain tyranny, to elevate enterprise, and to extend the bless- 
ings of " peace on earth, and good will among men." 

Is not Christianity especially a promoter and guardian of 
peace among nations, and this forms the security of society. 
It teaches men to do good to all, and to inflict injury on none. 
Its charity beareth all things, and overcomes evil with good. 
It only needs, therefore, the diffusion of its principles to 
" make wars to cease to the ends of the earth," and to bring 
down the people that delight in them ; so that there must be 
a breach of the gospel rules on every occasion of war which 
arises, and an opportunity is thereby furnished for the exer- 
cise of gospel mediation and forgiveness. These facts have 
been realized on a large scale in the world. Sanguinary wars 
of invasion, rapine, and murder, so common to European na- 
tions before the introduction of Christianity, have disappeared 
before its mild and gentle influence. Savage nations, whose 
only employment was ferocious cruelty, as they tortured, mur- 
dered, and devoured the quivering flesh of their mangled vic- 
tims, have in our own day obeyed the call of Christianity, 
and converted their fields of mutual extermination, into scenes 
of happy civilization and peace. It was but a few years ago, 
when the fiendish spirit of mutual jealousy and recrimination 
arose between Great Britain and America, threatening to let 
loose the demon of strife amongst us, that the moral feeling 
of Christians in both countries arose, and frowned down this 
monstrous guilt into quiescence. And do we not mark the 
upheaving of Christian principle in the progress of peace so- 
cieties amongst us ? to which the statesmen of the world 
shall soon be compelled to listen^ as the true policy alike of 
wisdom and safety, and the presage of that happier era to 
which the prediction and spirit of the gospel are conducting 
us, when " violence shall no more be heard in our streets, 

NO XIII. 



194 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

wasting nor destruction within our borders, because our offi- 
cers shall be peace, and our exactors righteousness." 

Christianity also X->i'oi^otes enlightened liberty in nations, 
and this forms the glory of society. It was not the province 
of the gospel to create an earthly kingdom, therefore it pro- 
poses no peculiar form of civil government. But it exhibits 
the grand principles by which all civil rule is to be conducted ; 
and teaches princes and people alike the salutary lesson, that 
they have each their duties as well as their rights. It de- 
2}jands the entire deliverance of sacred conscience from all 
huma.n oversight and controul ; and invites the immortal mind 
of every human being to rise from debasement and thraldom, 
and to walk abroad at liberty in the investigation and disco- 
very of all truth. Yv'henever these noble principles are re- 
ceived and understood, the human soul must rise to assert its 
true dignity and claims ; spiritual freedom becomes its in- 
heritance, and civil liberty must follow in its train. So well 
is this understood in the world, that tyrants have ever been 
afraid of the presence of Christianity in their dominions, and 
could only preserve their seats, by banishing it forth from 
their territory, or by bribing it to sell its birthright of free- 
dom, and to sink into the mercenary hireling of civil power. 
If Christianity has ever been found associated with slavery, 
it must be where it was impotent to influence authority for 
purposes of deliverance, or where it was previously corrupted 
and bribed, so as to lose its distinctive excellence, ere it could 
sanction it. True Christianity never created ox3pression, ne- 
ver forged a chain. Often it has demolished and broken both. 
We live in an age that is filled with its moral triumphs. It 
was the Christian power of spiritual conviction in our land 
which alone compelled the British nation to set its bond-men 
free, and to exhibit an example to the nations, which must 
ere long be followed throughout the world. Nor shall this 
kindly spirit cease to breathe its benignant influence, until it 
break the last link that binds man to debasement, and go forth 
to the triumphs of universal emancipation, as it fulfils its own 
promise '' to undo the heavy burden, and let the oppressed go 
free, and break every yoke." 

The commerce of nations is equally indebted to Christianity 
for its enterprise, and this forms the ivecdth of society. The 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 195 

principle of barter or mutual exchange is the law of nature 
as well as nations. God has ordained that endless variety oi 
products should belong to different regions, so that the com- 
fort of the human family should be secured by mutual e:?- 
change of commodities ; and thus a reciprocal law of kinaiy 
interest should bind together the race. Whatever promotes 
the peace and liberty of a people, also necessarily increases its 
commercial enterprise ; for commerce can only flourish amidst 
security ; and capital as well as skill, which form its strength 
and activity, will only stay where there is principle to pre- 
serve it from spoliation, and freedom to exercise its use. The 
value of Christianity herein again makes itself apparent, in 
giving impulse to that ingenuity which reveals itself in inven- 
tions, and sustaining that adventurous enterprise v,'hich pur- 
sues its traffic into all lands. We need scarcely remind you 
that the reception of the gospel in any country has invariably 
been followed by an increased export from its shores., and an 
enlarged demand for our manufactures ; and to what else but 
the presence and protecting influence of a pure Christianity 
can it be attributed that Britain — a puny island in a remote 
corner of the world- — has risen to be the mart of the world's 
merchandise, the emporium of its commerce, the mistress of 
all its machinery, and the treasury of its abundant wealth. 

If I only advert to the charities of society , the list of the so- 
cial blessings of Christianity is complete. It has been re- 
marked that *' Christianity found the heathen world to which it 
came, without a single house of mercy." You might search the 
chronicles of non-christian nations in all ages and countries 
without finding mention of a charitable institution. The 
kindly genius of Christianity alone could create the idea, and 
the strength of its gracious principle alone sustain its exhaust- 
ing realities. When we look abroad on the vast erections of 
benevolent enterprise which crowd all Christian lands, and 
traverse the globe, — to arrest disease, instruct ignorance, feed 
the famishing, reform the criminal, soothe the last moments 
of afiiiction, and save the souls of the perishing ; — can vre fail 
to regard the religion which formed and supplies all this be- 
nevolence, as the richest gift of God, and the very image of 
his own love to the race ; and can we fail to say with the ho- 
noured and patriotic Washington, — '' of all the dispositions 



198 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITT. 

and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and 
morality are indispensable supports. These form the great 
pillars of human happiness, the firmest props of men and 
citizens." 

V. The transcendant benefits of Christianity are apparent 
in the spiritual improvement which it has ivrought on every 
variety of huTnan character that has embraced it ; and in 
this respect it has proved itself to be the best friend of the 
highest interests of men. The religion of the gospel has been 
severely proved from the beginning. It came at first to no 
kindly region ; the world on w^hich it entered was pre-occu- 
pied by other systems, w^hich Vv'ere intensely hostile to its 
claims. Its own simple and self-denying truths were most 
offensive to human nature, wliose favourable regards it sought. 
And yet this humble and unattractive faith — w^hose claims 
were disputed at every step, whose cause was despised and 
ridiculed by all the fashionable and established superstitions 
of the age — braved the combined malignity of the world, and 
boldly avowed, from the first, its determination to supplant 
every rival system, and to assume divine supremacy. How 
the gospel fulfilled this high commission, and attested its di- 
vine powers, the first ages of its history reveal, in results to 
which the world offers no parallel, and which admit of only 
one explanation. Can it be forgotten that literature and 
science were strangers to its birth — that civil power, whose 
patronage it disowned, only persecuted and proscribed it ? 
yet this despised faith of the crucified Xazarene^ in ab- 
sence of every adventitious assistance, and in defiance of the 
whole world's frown, dissolved and exploded the superstitions 
of ages, supplanted the gods of Greece and Home in their 
seats, and, ere the first generation had passed away, could 
reckon its converts by tens of thousands, in almost every 
country of the then discovered globe. If the glory of this 
unrivalled success is attempted to be marred, by reminding 
us that Christianity did not follow up this presage of univer- 
sal triumphs by equal results, and that subsequent ages wit- 
nessed its arrest and wane, our answer is prompt ; that not 
Christianity, bat the corruption of it, is responsible for this 
decline ; and that the religion of the Bible, which predicted, 
and for wise and holy reasons permitted this ebb in the tide 



MORAL AXD SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIAXITY. 197 

of its prosperity, is not to be held responsible for the evils of 
an insincere profession, ^yhich, for sinister motives only, 
usurped its name. 

But we stay not to found further argument on the aggre- 
gate successes of the gospel ; it more concerns us to enquire 
what improvement was wrought on man's condition and cha- 
racter by the reception of it. On this subject our proof is 
ample and decisive, from the statements alike of friends and 
foes ; that the conversions of Christianity were no mere ex- 
change of superstitions, which left the subjects of it nothing 
better, and lessened in no degree the vice and misery of the 
world. On the contrary, these parties affirm, that every- 
where the drunkard became sober, the lascivious were made 
chaste, the vicious were changed into virtuous characters, and 
private debaucheries and public crimes alike disappeared 
wherever the gospel of Jesus Christ was received into the 
heart. Thus Pliny, a heathen, and inveterate persecutor of 
Christians, writes, that the '' great crime of these Xazarenes 
consisted in binding themselves, not to be guilty of theft, or 
robbery, or adultery, and never to falsify their word." And 
the apostate emperor Julian declares, that ^' the means by 
which Christians propagated their principles were hi/ sanctity 
of life, Jcindness to strangers, and the attention they paid to 
the burial of the dead.'' Lactantius beautifully sums up the 
beneficial effects of Christianity when he says, — " Give me a 
man angry, abusive, passionate, and with a few words — the 
words of God — I will render him as gentle as a lamb. Give 
me a lustful and adulterous man, and you shall see him sober, 
chaste, continent. Give me an unjust, foolish, and notorious 
offender, and he shall immediately become equitable, prudent, 
and innocent. So great is the power of divine wisdom, that 
when infused into the heart, it expels, by a single effort, 
folly, the parent of all vice.'' 

Such miracles of moral improvement the gospel realizes 
still, in every age and country where its pure principles are 
embraced. Even now it has lost none of its efficacy. The 
striking conversions of earlier times are repeated every day 
around us, although unbelievers are the last to allow, and the 
least able to appreciate them. I know that it is difficult to 



198 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

depict spiritual experience to those who are strangers to its 
influence; and it is delicate also to reveal the secrets of daily 
life around you. But if I were permitted to lift the veil from 
the privacies of domestic experience, I could shew you the 
triumphs of the gospel in the hearts of men at your doors, 
that would compel your admiration, if it did not provoke your 
acceptance of their principles. I have been where the wi- 
dow's wail has mingled with the orphan's tears, and have 
seen the consolations of the gospel bind up and bless hearts 
with peace, that otherwise must have been broken with sor- 
row, and crushed into despair. I have seen the gospel trans- 
form the abandoned drunkard's dwelling into comfort, because 
it had first renewed his heart, and made the former demon of 
his home to be subdued into all the gentleness of a husband, 
and affection of a father. I have stood by the last moments 
of dying ones to witness — in cases too numerous to reckon — 
the peace, and confidence, and triumph, with which a Chris- 
tian died. You have heard of the frequent recantations of 
unbelievers in a dying hour. I have no wish to taunt any 
man with the repetition of the thrice-told tale of cases which 
occurred many years ago, and in places remote from our own 
homes. I have only to say that I repeatedly have been a 
witness to similar scenes at our own doors. Could I unfold 
the secrets of that prison in the vicinity of which we are now 
assembled, I could tell you of at least two persons of avowedly 
infidel profession, who, when death was at the door, volun- 
tarily abjured those sentiments with expressions of loathing 
and disgust which I shall not venture to repeat. These per- 
sons were strangers to me, I forced no personal service on 
them, but was v/ith them at their own request. I urged them 
to no confession, yet, with the perfect command of their rea- 
son, and with all the solemnity of last words, they implored 
me to a duty which I now fulfil — to tell all persons of similar 
opinions to fiee from them ere it be too late ; and that, how- 
ever men may fortify themselves in such opinions while in 
health, they cannot bear the investigation of solitary sorrow, 
or stay the soul in deatn. Men and brethren, amid the many 
authenticated cases of similar character that are upon record, 
did you ever hear of any Christian ever turning apostate in 



MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 

h's dying hour ? You never — no man, we venture to say, 
ever did. Men may have bewailed the want of Christianity 
at that solemn moment, but no one that loved the gospel and 
practised it while he lived, ever found it turn truant or traitor 
when he came to die. And I put it to your consciences now, 
as reasonable men, whether, by rejecting the gospel, you 
are prepared to embrace uncertainties, which may turn round 
to mock your dying agonies, or ready to confide in a faith 
which at least will sustain and bless you to the last. 

The conclusion of my argument is simple, but it is alike per- 
sonal and solemn, A religion that can certify such benefits, and 
reveal such results, must carry with it paramount claims upon 
the hearts and consciences of men. If there be any truth or force 
in our illustrations, it is not enough that we give Christian re- 
velation an easy assent, or simply own its claims. It demands 
not only that we investigate its evidences, and give it the 
consent of our reason and conviction, but also that we receive 
its truth into our hearts, and live under its power. Is this a 
claim which we are prepared to allow, or are we ready deli- 
berately to brave the results of rejecting it ? I speak alike 
on behalf of my own soul and yours, in this solemn case ; for 
we stand on equal ground, and are the subjects of a similar 
responsibility. While the true Christian claims to experi- 
ence a well assured faith, which fences this life on every side 
with sweetest security,^ and shews the world to come, bright 
to him, with the conscious prospects of everlasting happiness, 
is there any reasonable man amongst us who is deliberately 
inclined to forego all these advantages, and to plunge into the 
toils and woes of life without a stay ? Are we prepared for 
the harrowing chances of misfortune, and to endure the 
world's consequent rejection and scorn, while we have not one 
heavenly hope to cheer our unblest despondency, or one spi- 
ritual consolation to fill the aching void in our hearts ? Can 
we deliberately grapple with death himself when he closes in 
single handed and mortal strife with us ? Shall we realize the 
loosening of the cords of life, and the dizzying struggle of 
dissolution, when we have no hand to help^ no friend to sus- 
tain us — when all above and around is the black midnight 
of dreary despair, and the future yawns with no hope of 



200 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

alleviation hereafter ? — but when the invisible world begins to 
dawn in dim and dread reality on our departing spirits, its 
dark angry clouds that gather their gloomy folds around us, 
are portentous of — what we dare not enquire, and shudder to 
meet. *' that men were wuse, that they understood this, 
that they would consider their latter end." 



( 201 ) 



LECTURE X. 

ON THE 



TESTIMONY OE THE APOSTIES TOE THE TEUTH OF 
CHEISTIAMTY. 

BY THE EEY. W. WILSOI^. 



The whole field which I have to traverse this evening has 
been so often trod, and with such firm though cautious foot- 
steps, that I can hope to adduce nothing new in the shape 
either of argument or of illustration. The several portions of 
the argument have heen so well put by various authors, that 
I should but injure it by seeking to depart from their state- 
ments. It has appeared to me on the whole, therefore, to be 
best, that 1 should content myself with submitting to you the 
best statements I have been able to select from those w^ho have 
fully investigated and expounded the subject. 

When we adduce a witness to depone to fact, and endea- 
vour by his evidence to establish it, the first object is to as- 
certain who he is ? Such a question is altogether pertinent in 
our present inquiry. Our primary witnesses then for the 
truth of Christianity, are the writers of the New Testament. 
They are eight in number, and they have their testimony on 
record. That record is before us for examination, and con- 
tains all that the witnesses can say to us. They depone that 
they were witnesses of the facts they have recorded. " We speak 
that we do know, and testify that we have seen." The facts 
to w^hich they depone are such that they could not be deceived 
in regard to them. Their honesty has been tested by the 
most severe methods, in the trials and sufiTeringsthey endured 
on behalf of their statements. 



202 EVIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But we shall be met with this objection, which is also, quite 
pertinent and proper. It is true you point us to a j-ecord 
which professes to have been written by eye witnesses ; but 
how do we know that this is the case ? Your first witness is 
Matthew, who says, that he was an apostle of Christianity, 
and who speaks as if he had seen and heard v/hat he has re- 
corded ; but how are we to know whether tliere ever was 
such a person — whether he wrote the book that bears his name 
— whether he was contemporary with tha events he narrates 
— or whether the whole is not a story artfully contrived in 
the exercise of priestcraft for the purpose of imposing upon 
the minds of men? In other words, the question may be put, 
how do you identify your witnesses ? 

It is stated that on one occasion when the Apostle Peter, in 
terror for his life, denied both his Master and his country, his 
falsehood was detected by his speech. He was detected as a 
Galilean by the style in which he spoke. It is by a similar 
process we ascertain that the writings collected together in the 
New Testament are the production of the age and of the 
country to which they are commonly referred. Their style is 
such as pertains peculiarly to that time and country. They 
are written in Greek, but in a dialect which belongs only to 
that age. They abound in Hebrew idiomatic expressions, 
which indicate the origin of the writers. The strength of this 
evidence, while it can only be thoroughly appreciated by the 
learned, jnay yet be felt in some measure, even by those who 
know nothing of the various Greek dialects. Take for example 
the poems of Robert Burns and of Allan Ramsay, and com- 
pare them with one another, and v*^ith other writings, and 
every one will inevitably infer that the two writers were 
Scotchmen, and that they did not belong to the same era in 
our literature. A little scholarship in the literature of Scot- 
land will enable us to assign, within a few years, the date of 
their works, and to determine the locality to which they be- 
longed. It is on similar grounds and with peculiar force that 
v/e conclude that the writings contained in the Xew Testa- 
ment are the production of men who were Jews by birth and 
education, and who belonged to; the Christian era. 

But this argument deserves to be stated more fully : — 

'' The Greek in which the Nevf Testament is written is not 



TESTIMONY 01 THE APOSTLES EOK THE TP^JTH. 203 

pure and elegant Greek, sucli as was written by Plato, Aris- 
totle, or other eminent Grecian authors ; l)ut it is Hebraic- 
Greek, that is, Greek intermixed with many peculiarities ex- 
clusively belonging to the East- Aramaean, i. e. the Hebrew or 
Chaldee, and the west Aramaean or Sjriac tongues, which 
were at that time spoken in common life by the Jews of Pa- 
lestine, In short, ' it is such a dialect as would be used by 
persons who were educated in a country where Chalclee or 
Syriac was spoken as the vernacular tongue, but who also ac- 
quired a knowledge of Greek by frequent intercourse with 
strangers ;' and it resembles pure classical Greek as much 
probably as the French or German written or spoken by a 
native Englishman, which must be constantly mixed with some 
anglicisms, resembles the language of Dresden or of Paris. 
iSTo^v this is a very striking mark of the authenticity of these 
writings ; for, if the New Testament had been w^ritten in pure, 
elegant, and classical Greek, it w^ould he evident that the wri- 
ters were either native Greeks, or scholars who had studied 
the Greek language, as the writings of Philo and Jcsephus 
manifestly indicate the scholar. But since w^e find the Greek 
of the New Testament perpetually intermixed with oriental 
idioms, it is evident from this circumstance that the w-riters 
were Jews by birth, and unlearned men, ' in humhle stations, 
who never sought to obtain an exemption from the dialect they 
had once acquired. They w^ere concerned with facts and with 
doctrines ; and if these were correctly stated, the purity of 
their diction appeared to them a matter of no importance. It 
is true, that one of them was a man of erudition, and moreover 
born at Tarsus. But ic St Paul was horn at Tarsus, he was 
educated at Jerusalem ; and his erudition was the erudition of 
a Jewish, not of a Grecian school. 

'' ' The language therefore of the Greek Testament is pre- 
cisely such as we might expect from the persons to w^hom the 
several parts of it are ascribed. But we may go still further, 
and assert, not only that the language of the Greek Testament 
accords with the situation of the persons to w^hom it is ascribed, 
but that it could not have been used by any person or persons 
who were in a diiferent situation from that of the apostles and 
evangelists. It was necessary to have lived in the first cen- 



204 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

turj, and to have been educated in Judaea, or in Galilee, or in 
some adjacent country, to be enabled to write such a compound 
language as that of the Greek Testament. L'nless some orien- 
tal dialect had been familiar to the persons who wrote the 
several books of the New Testament, they would not have been 
able to write that particular kind of Greek, by which those 
books are distinguished from every classic author. Nor would 
this kind of language have appeared in the several books of 
the New Testament, even though the writers had lived in Ju- 
daea, unless they had lived also in the same age with the apos- 
tles and evangelists. Judaea itself could not have produced 
in the second century the compositions which we find in the 
New Testament. The destruction of Jerusalem and the total 
subversion of the Jewish state, introduced new forms and new 
relations, as well in language as in policy. Tlie language 
therefore of a fabrication attempted in the second century 
would have borne a different character from that of writings 
composed in the same country before the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem. And even if the dialect of a former age could have been 
successfully imitated, no inhabitant of Judaea in the second 
century would have made the attempt. The Jews who re- 
mained in that country will hardly be suspected of such a fa- 
brication. And the only Christians who remained there in 
the second century were the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. 
But the Nazarenes and the Ebionites used only one Gospel, 
and that Gospel was in Hebrew. They will hardly be sus- 
pected therefore of having forged Greek Gospels. Nor can 
they be suspected of having forged Greek Epistles, especially 
as the Epistles of St Paul were rejected by the Ebionites, not 
indeed as spurious, but as containing doctrines at variance with 
their peculiar tenets. But if Judcea could not have produced 
in the second century such writings as we find in the '^qw 
Testament, no other country could have produced them. For 
the Christians of the second century, who lived where Greek 
was the vernacular language, though their dialect might differ 
from the dialect of Athens, never used a dialect in which 
oriental phraseology was so mingled with Greek words, as we 
find in the New Testament. The language therefore clearly 
shews, that it could not have been written in any other age 
than in the first century, nor by any other persons than by 



TESTIMO>^Y OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TEUTH. 205 

persons in the situation of the Apostles and Evangelists.' "— 
Bishop Marsh's Lectures, as quoted in Home's Introduction j 
vol. i. p. 90, 91. 

This argument is strengthened when we look to the style 
in which the New Testament is written : — 

'* The style or manner of writing manifestly shows that iis 
authors were born and educated in the Jewish religion ; for 
the use of words and phrases is such — the allusions to the tem- 
ple-worship, as well as to the peculiar usages and sentiments 
of the Jews, are so perpetual — and the prevalence of the Old 
Testament phraseology (which is interwoven into the body of 
the New Testament, rather than quoted by its writers) is so 
great, as to prove, beyond the possibility of contradiction, that 
the books of the New Testament could be written by none but 
persons originally Jews, and who were not superior in rank 
and education to those whose names they bear. . . The 
elegancies of composition and style are not to be sought in the 
historical books of the New Testament, in which ' we find the 
simplicity of writers, who were more intent upon things than 
upon words ; we find men of plain education honestly relating 
what they knew, without attempting to adorn their narratives 
by any elegance or grace of diction. And this is precisely the 
kind of writing which we should expect from the persons to 
whom those books are ascribed. In the Epistles of St Paul 
we find a totally different manner ; but again it is precisely 
such as we should expect from St Paul. His arguments, 
though irresistible, are frequently devoid of method ; in the 
strength of the reasoning the regularity of the form is over- 
looked. The erudition there displayed is the erudition of a 
learned Jew ; the argumentation there displayed is the argu- 
mentation of a Jewish convert to Christianity confuting his 
brethren on their own ground. Who is there that does not 
recognise in this description the apostle who was bom at Tar- 
sus, but educated at the feet of Gamaliel ? 

*^ 'If we further compare the language of the New Testa- 
ment with the temper and disposition of the writers to whom 
the several books of it are ascribed, we shall again find a cor- 
respondence which implies that those books are justly ascribed 
to them. The character of the disciple whom Jesus loved is 
everywhere impressed on the writings of St John. ^Mdely 



206 EVIDEXCES or CHRISTIANITY. 

different is the character impressed on the writings of St Paul, 
but it is equally accordant with the character of the writer. 
Gentleness and kindness were characteristic of St John ; and 
these qualities characterise his writings. Zeal and animation 
marked every where the conduct of St Paul ; and these are 
the qualities which are every where discernible in the writings 
ascribed to him.'" — Bishop Marshes Lectures, as quoted in 
Home's Introduction, vol. i. p. 91, 92. 

The circumstantiality of the narratives in the Xev Testa- 
ment yet farther confirms the argument in favour of their 
genuineness : — 

*•' Whoever/' says Michaelis, '* undertakes to forge a set of 
writings, and ascribe them to persons who lived in a former 
period, exposes himself to the utmost danger of a discordancy 
with the history and manners of the age to which his accounts 
are referred ; and this danger increases in proportion as they 
relate to points not mentioned in general history, but to such 
as belong only to a single city, sect, religion, or school. Of 
all books that ever were written, there is none, if the New 
Testament is a forgery, so liable to detection : the scene of 
action is not confined to a single country, but displayed in the 
greatest cities of the Roman empire ; allusions are made to 
the various manners and principles of the Greeks, the Ro- 
mans, and the Jews, which are carried so far with respect to 
this last nation as to extend even to the trifles and follies of 
their schools. A Greek or Roman Christian, who lived in the 
second or third century, though as well versed in the writings 
•of the ancients as Eustathius or Asconius, would still have 
been wanting in Jewish literature ; and a Je^vish convert in 
those ages, even the most learned rabbi, would have been 
equally deficient in the knowledge of Greece and Rome. If, 
then, the 'New Testament thus exposed to detection (had it 
been an imposture), is found, after the severest researches, to 
harmonise with the history, the manners, and the opinions of 
the first century, and since, the more minutely we inquire, the 
more perfect v/e find the coincidence, we must conclude that it 
was beyond the reach of human abilities to efiectuate so vvon- 
derful a deception." — Michaelis s Introduction, 

" To appreciate the force of this argument, it would be 
right to attend to the peculiar situation of Judea, at the time 



TESTnIO^'Y OF THE APOSTLES EOR THE TRUTH. 207 

of our Sayiour. It -was then under the dominion of the Eo- 
luan emperors, and comes frequently under the notice of the 
profane historians of that period. From this source we de- 
rive a great variety of information, as to the manner in 
which the emperors conducted the government of their dif- 
ferent jDrovinces ; what degree of indulgence was allowed to 
the religious opinions of the people whom they held in sub- 
jection; in how far tliey were suffered to live under the ad- 
ministration of their own laws: the power which was vested 
in the presidents of jDrovinces ; and a numter of other cir- 
cumstances relative to the criminal and civil jurisprudence of 
that period. In this way, there is a great number of dif- 
ferent points in which the historians of the Xew Testament 
can be brought into comparison with the secular historians of 
the age. The history of Christ and his apostles contains in- 
numerable references to the state of public affairs. It is not 
the history of obscure and unnoticed individuals. They had 
attracted much of the public attention. They had been be- 
fore the governors of the country. They had passed through 
the established forms of justice ; and some of them underwent 
the trial and punishment of the times. It is ea?y to perceive, 
then, that the New Testament writers were led to allude to a 
number of these circumstances in the political history and 
constitution of the times, which came under the cognisance of 
ordinary historians. This was delicate ground for an inven- 
tor to tread upon ; and particularly, if he lived at an age sul- 
sequent to the time of his history. He might in this case 
have fabricated a tale, by confining himself to the obscure and 
familiar incidents of private history : but it is only for a true 
and a contemporary historian, to sustain a continued accuracy 
through his minute and numerous allusions to the public 
policy and government of the times. 

"Within the period of the gospel history, Judea expe- 
rienced a good many vicissitudes in the state of its government. 
At one time it formed part of a kingdom under Herod the 
Great. At another, it formed part of a smaller government 
under Archelaus. It, after this, came under the direct ad- 
ministration of a Roman governor ; which form was again in- 
terrupted, for several years, by the elevation cf Herod Agrippa 
to the sovereign power, as exercised by his grandfather ; and 



208 EVIDEXCES 0? CHRISTIANITY. 

it was at last left in the form of a province at the conclusion 
of the evangelical history. There were also frequent changes 
in the political state of the countries adjacent to Judea ; and 
which are often alluded to in the New Testament. A caprice 
of the reigning emperor often gave rise to a new form of go- 
vernment, and a new distribution of territory. It will be 
readily conceived, how much these perpetual fluctuations in 
the state of public affairs, both in Judea and its neighbour- 
hood, must add to the power and difficulty of that ordeal to 
which the gospel history has been subjected. 

*' On this part of the subject, there is no want of wit- 
nesses with whom to confront the writers of the Xew Testa- 
ment. In addition to the Roman writers who have touched 
upon the affairs of Judea, we have the benefit of a Jewish 
historian, who has given us a professed history of his own 
country. From him, as was to be expected, we have a far 
greater quantity of copious and detailed narrative, relative to 
the internal affairs of Judea, to the manners of the people, 
and those particulars which are connected with their religious 
belief, and ecclesiastical constitution. With many, it will be 
supposed to add to the value of his testimony, that he was not 
a Christian ; but that, on the other hand, we have every reason 
to believe him to have been a most zealous and determined 
enemy to the cause. It is really a most useful exercise, to 
pursue the harmony which subsists between the writers of the 
New Testament, and those Jewish and profane authors with 
whom we bring them into comparison. Throughout the 
whole examination, our attention is confined to forms of jus- 
tice ; succession of governors in different provinces ; manners, 
and political institutions. We are therefore apt to forget the 
sacredness of the subject ; and we appeal to all who have pro- 
secuted this inquiry, if this circumstance is not favourable to 
their having a closer and more decided impression of the truth 
of the gospel history. By instituting a comparison betwixt 
the Evangelists and contemporary authors, and restricting our 
attention to those poiits which come under the cognisance of 
ordinary history, we put the apostles and evangelists on the 
footing of ordinary historians ; and it is for those who have 
actually undergone the labour of this examination, to tell how 
much this circumstance adds to the impression of their authen- 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 209 

ticity. The mind gets emancipated from the peculiar delu- 
sion which attaches to the sacredness of the subject, and which 
has the undoubted effect of restraining the confidence of its 
inquiries. The argument assumes a secular complexion, and 
the writers of the New Testament are restored to that credit 
with which the reader delivers himself up to any other his- 
torian who has a much less weight and quantity of historical 
evidence in his favour. 

" We refer those readers who wish to prosecute this inquiry 
to the first volume of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospels, 
We shall restrict ourselves to a few general observations on 
the nature and precise effect of the argument. 

" In the first place, the accuracy of the numerous allusions 
to the circumstances of that period which the gospel history 
embraces, forms a strong corroboration of that antiquity 
which we have already assigned to its writers from external 
testimony. It amounts to a proof, that it is the production 
of authors who lived antecedent to the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, and, consequently, about the time that is ascribed to them 
by all the external testimony which has already been insisted 
upon. It is that accuracy, which could only be maintained 
by a contemporary historian. It would be difficult, even for 
the author of some general speculation, not to betray his time 
by some occasional allusion to the ephemeral customs and 
institutions of the period in which he wrote. But the authors 
of the New Testament run a much greater risk. There are 
five different pieces of that collection which are purely his- 
torical, and where there is a continued reference to the cha- 
racters, and politics, and passing events of the day. The de- 
struction of Jerusalem swept away the whole fabric of Jewish 
polity ; and it is not to be conceived, that the memory of a 
future generation could have retained that minute, that varied, 
that intimate acquaintance with the statistics of a nation no 
longer in existence, which is evinced in every page of the 
evangelical writers. We find, in point of fact, that both the 
heathen and Christian writers of subsequent ages do often 
betray their ignorance of the particular customs which 
obtained in Judea during the time of our Saviour. And it 
must be esteemed a strong circumstance in favour of the anti- 
quity of the New Testament, that on a subject in which the 

NO XIV. 



2 i EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

chances of detection are so numerous, and where we can 
scarcely advance a single step in the narrative, without the 
possibility of betraying our time by some mistaken allusion, 
it stands distinguished from every later composition, in being 
able to bear the most minute and intimate comparison with 
the contemporary historians of that period. 

" The argument derives great additional strength, from 
viewing the New Testament, not as one single performance, 
but as a collection of several performances. It is the work of 
no less than eight different authors ; who wrote without any 
appearance of concert ; who published in different parts of the 
world ; and whose writings possess every evidence, both in- 
ternal and external, of being independent productions. Had 
only one author exhibited the same minute accuracy of allu- 
sion, it would have been esteemed a very strong evidence of 
his antiquity. But when we see so many authors exhibiting 
such a well-sustained and almost unexcepted accuracy through 
the whole of their varied and distinct narratives, it seems 
difficult to avoid the conclusion, that they were either the 
eye-witnesses of their own history, or lived about the period 
of its accomplishment. 

*' When different historians undertake the affairs of the 
same period, they either derive their information from one 
another, or proceed upon distinct and independent informa- 
tion of their own. Now, it is not difficult to distinguish the 
copyist from the original historian. There is something in 
the very style and manner of an original narrative, which an- 
nounces its pretensions. It is not possible that any one event, 
or any series of events^ should make such a similar impres- 
sion upon two witnesses, as to dispose them to relate it in the 
same language ; to describe it in the same order ; to form the 
same estimate as to the circumstances which should be noticed 
as important, and those other circumstances which should be 
suppressed as immaterial. Each witness tells the thing in 
his own way ; makes use of his own language ; and brings for- 
ward circumstances which the other might omit altogether, 
as not essential to the purpose of his narrative. It is this 
agreement in the facts, with this variety in the manner of 
describing them, that never fails to impress upon the inquirer 
that additional conviction which arises from the concurrence 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 211 

of separate and independent testimonies. No% this is pre- 
cisely that kind of coincidence which subsists between the New 
Testament writers and Joseiohus, in their allusions to the pe- 
culiar customs and institutions of that age. Each party 
maintains the style of original and independent historians. 
The one often omits altogether, or makes only a slight and 
distant allusion to what occupies a prominent part in the com- 
position of the other. There is not the slightest vestige of 
anything like a studied coincidence betwixt them. There is 
variety, but no opposition; and it says much for the authen- 
ticity of both histories, that the most scrupulous and attentive 
criticism can scarcely detect a single example of an apparent 
contradiction in the testimony of these different authors, 
which does not admit of a likely, or at least a plausible, re- 
conciliation." — Dr Chalmers'^ Works, vol. iii. p. 192-199. 

" It is always looked upon as a favourable presumption 
when a story is told circumstantially. The art and the safety 
of an impostor is, to confine his narrative to generals, and not 
to commit himself by too minute a specification of time and 
place, and allusion to the manners or occurrences of the day. 
The more of circumstance that we introduce into a story, we 
multiply the chances of detection, if false ; and therefore, 
where a great deal of circumstance is introduced, it proves, 
that the narrator feels the confidence of truth, and labours 
under no apprehension for the fate of his narrative. Even 
though we have it not in our power to verify the truth of a 
single circumstance, yet the mere property of a story being 
circumstantial is always felt to carry an evidence in its favour. 
It imparts a more familiar air of life and reality to the nar- 
rative. It is easy to believe that the groundwork of a story 
may be a fabrication ; but it requires a more refined species 
of imposture than we can well conceive, to construct a har- 
monious and well- sustained narrative, abounding in minute 
and circumstantial details, which support one another, and 
where, with all our experience of real life, we can detect no- 
thing misplaced, or inconsistent or improbable. 

*' To prosecute this argument in all its extent, it would be 
necessary to present the reader with a complete analysis or 
examination of the gospel history. But the most superficial 
observer cannot fail to perceive, that it maintains, in a very 



212 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

high degree, the character of being a circumstantial narrative. 
When a miracle is recorded, we have generally the name of 
the town or neighbourhood where it happened; the names of 
the people concerned ; the effect upon the hearts and convic- 
tions of the bystanders ; the arguments and examinations it 
gave birth to ; and all that minuteness of reference and de- 
scription which impresses a strong character of reality upon 
the whole history. If we take along with us the time at 
which this history made its appearance, the argument becomes 
much stronger. It does not merely carry a presumption in 
its favour, from being a circumstantial history : it carries a 
proof in its favour, because these circumstances were com- 
pletely within the reach and examination of those to whom it 
was addressed. Had the Evangelists been false historians, 
they would not have committed themselves upon so many par- 
ticulars. They would not have furnished the vigilant in- 
quirers of that period with such an effectual instrument for 
bringing them into discredit with the people ; nor foolishly 
supplied, in every page of their narrative, so many materials 
for a cross-examination, which would infallibly have disgraced 
them. 

" Now, we of this age can institute the same cross-exami- 
nation. We can compare the evangelical writers with contem- 
porary authors, and verify a number of circumstances in the 
history, and government, and peculiar economy of the Jewish 
people. We therefore have it in our power to institute a 
cross-examination upon the writers of the New Testament ; 
and the freedom and frequency of their allusions to these cir- 
cumstances supply us with ample materials for it. The fact, 
that they are borne out in their minute and incidental allu- 
sions by the testimony of other historians, gives a strong 
weight of what has been called circumstantial evidence in their 
favour. As a specimen of the argument, let us confine our 
observations to the history of our Saviour's trial, and execu- 
tion, and burial. They brought him to Pontius Pilate. We 
know, both from Tacitus and Josephus, that he was at that 
time governor of Judea. A sentence from him was necessary 
before they could proceed to the execution of Jesus ; and we 
know that the power of life and death was usually vested in 
the Roman governor. Our Saviour was treated with derision ; 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 213 

and this we know to have been a customary practice at that 
time, previous to the execution of criminals, and during the 
time of it. Pilate scourged Jesus "before he gave him up to 
be crucified. We know, from ancient authors, that this was 
a very usual practice among the Romans. The account of an 
execution generally ran in this form: He was stripped, whipp- 
ed, and beheaded, or executed. According to the Evangelists, 
his accusation was written on the top of the cross ; and we 
learn from Suetonius and others, that the crime of the person 
to be executed was affixed to the instrument of his punish- 
ment. According to the Evangelists, this accusation was 
written in three diflferent languages ; and we know from 
Josephus, that it was quite common in Jerusalem to have all 
public advertisements written in this manner. According to 
the Evangelists, Jesus had to bear his cross; and we know, from 
other sources of information, that this was the constant prac- 
tice of these times. According to the Evangelists, the body 
of Jesus was given up to be buried at the request of friends. 
We know that, unless the criminal was infamous, this was the 
law, or custom, with ail Roman governors. 

*' These, and a few more particulars of the same kind, oc- 
cur within the compass of a single page of the evangelical 
history. The circumstantial manner of the history affords 
a presumption in its favour, antecedent to all examination into 
the truth of the circumstances themselves. But it makes a 
strong addition to the evidence, when we find, that in all the 
subordinate parts of the main story, the Evangelists maintain 
so great a consistency with the testimony of other authors, 
and with all that we can collect from other sources of infor- 
mation, as to the manners and institutions of that period. It 
is difficult to conceive, in the first instance, how the inventor 
of a fabricated story would hazard such a number of circum- 
stances, each of them supplying a point of comparison with 
other authors, and giving to the inquirer an additional chance 
of detecting the imposition. And it is still more difficult to 
believe, that truth should have been so artfully blended with 
falsehood in the composition of this narrative, particularly as 
we perceive nothing like a forced introduction of any one cir- 
cumstance. There appears to be nothing out of place ; no- 
thing thrust in with the view of imparting an air of proba- 



214 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

bilitj to the history. The circumstance upon which we bring 
the Evangelists into comparison with profane authors, is 
often not intimated in a direct form, but in the form of a slight 
or distant allusion. There is not the most remote appearance 
of its being fetched or sought for. It is brought in accidentally, 
and flows in the most natural and undesigned manner out of 
the progress of the narrative.'' — Dr Chalmers' Works, vol. iii. 
p. 203-207. 

Besides these internal marks of genuineness, which are very 
abundant and satisfactory, we have the direct testimony of 
those who were acquainted with the writers of the New Testa- 
ment, who heard them, and who quote their recorded sayings. 
Such quotations as these occurring in the early fathers of the 
Church fix the time of the authorship of the New Testament, 
and by their aid we ascertain the canon of the New Testa- 
ment, " by their quotations from the several books which it con- 
tains, or by their explicit references to them, as the authentic 
Scriptures received and relied on as inspired oracles, by the 
whole Christian church. They most frequently use the same 
words which are still read in the New Testament ; and, even 
when they appear to have quoted from memory, without in- 
tending to confine themselves to the same language, or to have 
merely referred to the Scriptures, without professing to quote 
them, it is clear that they had precisely the same texts in 
their view which are still found in the books of the New Tes- 
tament. But, what is of chief importance on this subject, 
every competent judge of their writings must perceive, on the 
one hand, that, in all the questions which occurred to them, 
either in doctrine or morals, they uniformly appealed to the 
same Scriptures which are in our possession ; and, on the 
other hand, that they were universally accustomed to refer to 
all the books of the New Testament containing what related 
to the subjects which they were led to discuss, without ap- 
pearing to have intentionally omitted any of them. All the 
inspired books, or the same texts, are not quoted by every 
writer ; as the subject of the Epistle to Philemon could not 
be so frequently appealed to, as the doctrine of larger and 
more argumentative epistles. They had no intention to re- 
cord the particulars of the canon, either of the Old or of the 
New Testament, not having been sufficiently aware of the 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 215 

importance of their testimony to succeeding ages ; though the 
facts which thej have furnished to establish it, incidentally or 
occasionally introduced in their writings, are not on this ac- 
count less intelligible or important, but on the contrary, de- 
rive a great part of their weight and value from this circum- 
stance. There is scarcely a booli of the New Testament, 
which one or other of the apostolical fathers has not either 
quoted or referred to ; and their united and unintentional tes- 
timony, given in this form, is certainly more decisive of the 
original authority assigned to the Scriptures referred to, than 
a precise list of them, or a professed dissertation from any in- 
dividual to prove their authenticity, would have been. They 
uniformly quote and allude to them, with the respect and re- 
verence due to inspired writings ; and they describe them as 
* Scriptures,' as ' Sacred Scriptures,' and as ' the Oracles of the 
Lord.' " (^See H. 31, WilliuoocVs Discourses.) 

The Apostolic Fathers are — 

*' 1. Barnabas, the fellow-labourer of Paul (Acts xiii. 2, 3, 
46, 47 ; 1 Cor. ix. 6), who is also expressly styled an apostle 
(Acts xiv. 14), and is the author of an epistle that was held 
in the greatest esteem by the ancients, which is still extant. 
In this epistle, though no book of the Xew Testament is ex- 
pressly named in it, yet there are to be found expressions, 
which are identically the same that occur in the gospel of 
Matthew ; and one in particular, which is introduced with the 
formula, 'it is ivritten,'' which was used by the Jews when 
they cited their sacred books. The epistle of Barnabas fur- 
ther contains the exact words of several other texts of the 
New Testament, and there are allusions to some others : it 
also contains many phrases and reasonings used by the apostle 
Paul, whom the author resembles, as his fellow-labourer, 
without copying him. It is to be observed, that Barnabas 
cites, or alludes to, many more passages out of the Old Tes- 
tament than from the New ; which is to be attributed to the 
time and character of the waiter, who was a Jew, and who ar- 
gued chiefly with Jews. 

"2. Clement, Bishop of Rome, and a fellow-labourer of the 
apostle Paul (Phil. iv. 3), wrote an epistle (which has not 
come down to us entire) in the name of the church at Rome, 
to the church at Corinth, in order to compose certain dissen- 



^16 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sions that prevailed there. In this epistle there are several 
passages, which exhibit the words of Christ as they stand in 
the Gospels, without mentioning them as quotations, agreeably 
to the usage which then generally prevailed. He also cites 
most of the epistles. It is generally supposed that Clement 
was ordained Bishop of Rome a.d. 91, and that he died in the 
third year of the reign of Trajan, a.d. 100. 

" 3. Hermas was also contemporary with Paul, by whom 
he is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14). He 
wrote a work in three books, towards the close of the first 
century, intitled the ' Pastor/ or ' Shepherd,^ which was 
highly esteemed by the early fathers. It was originally 
written in Greek, though now extant only in a Latin version, 
and it contains numerous allusions to the New Testament. 

" 4. Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch, a.d. 70, and suffered 
martyrdom a.d. 107, or, according to some accounts, a d. 116. 
If (as some have supposed) he was not one of the little chil- 
dren whom Jesus took up in his arms and blessed, it is certain 
that he conversed familiarly with the apostles, and was per- 
fectly acquainted with their doctrine. He has left several 
epistles that are still extant, in which he has distinctly quoted 
the gospels of Matthew and John, and has cited or alluded to 
the Acts and most of the epistles. 

" 5. Polycarp was an immediate disciple of the apostle 
John, by whom he was also appointed Bishop of Smyrna. He 
had conversed with many who had seen Jesus Christ, and is 
supposed to have been the angel of the church of Smyrna, to 
whom the epistle in the Revelation is addressed. He suf- 
fered martyrdom about the year 166. Of the various writings, 
which he is recorded to have left, only one epistle remains ; 
and in this he has nearly forty allusions to the different 
books of the New Testament.^' — Home's Introduction, vol. i. 
p. 79-81. 

Besides these we have an uninterrupted succession of 
Christian authors quoting and referring to those who have 
preceded them, as well as to the Xew Testament Scriptures, 
and rendering the chain of evidence as complete and satisfac- 
tory as it is conceivable that it could be made. 

" To give an idea to those who are not conversant in the 
study of ecclesiastical antiquities, how well sustained the chain 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 217 

of testimony is from the first age of Christianity, we shall 
give a passage from a letter of Irenaeus, preserved by Eusebius. 
We have no less than nine compositions from different authors, 
which fill up the interval betwixt him and Poljcarp; and yet 
this is the way in which he speaks, in his old age, of the vene- 
rable Polycarp, in a letter to Florinus : ' 1 saw you, when I 
was very young, in the lower Asia, with Polycarp. For I 
better remember the affairs of that time than those which have 
lately happened: the things which we learn in our childhood 
growing up in the soul, and uniting themselves to it. Inso- 
much, that I can tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp 
sat and taught, and his going out, and coming in, and the 
manner of his life, and the form of his person, and his dis- 
courses to the people ; and how he related his conversation 
with John, and others who had seen the Lord ; and how he 
related their sayings, and what he had heard from them con- 
cerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doc- 
trines, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the 
Word of Life ; all which Polycarp related agreeably to the 
Scriptures. These things I then, through the mercy of God 
toward me, diligently heard and attended to, recording them 
not on paper, but upon my heart.' '' — Dr Chalmers' WorJcs, 
vol. iii. p. 277-278. 

But the genuineness of the books of the New Testament, as 
well as their authenticity, is confirmed by the op]Donents of 
Christianity, as well as by its friends. 

'' Celsus, an Epicurean philosopher, who flourished towards 
the close of the second century, wrote a work against Chris- 
tianity, intitled X\r]6r]£ Aoyos, the greater part of which has 
been preserved to the present time by Origen, in his reply to 
it. In this treatise, which is written under the assumed cha- 
racter of a Jew, Celsus not only mentions by name, but also 
quotes passages from the books of the Xew Testament, so that 
it is certain we have the identical books to which he referred. 
Thus, ' the miraculous conception is mentioned with a view of 
accusing the Virgin Mary of adultery : — we also recognise 
Joseph's intention of putting her away, and the consequent 
appearance of the angel, warning him in a dream to take her 
as his wife : — we meet with a reference to the star that was 
seen at his birth, and the adoration paid to the new^-born Sa- 



218 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

viour by the Magi at Bethleliem : — the murder of the infants 
by Herod, in consequence of his being deceived by the wise 
men, is noticed, as also the re-appearance of the angel to Jo- 
seph, and his consequent flight into Egypt. Here then are 
references to all the facts of our Saviour's birth. Again, we 
are informed of the descent of the Spirit in the form of a 
dove, and the voice from heaven at the baptism of our Saviour 
in Jordan ; we hear also of the temptation in the wilderness ; 
— we are told, that Christ was constantly attended by a cer- 
tain number of disciples, though the number is not correct : — 
there is an allusion to our Saviour's conversation with the 
woman of Samaria at the well : — and a reference less distinct 
to the attempt of the people of Nazareth to throw him down 
the rock, on which their city was built : — here, therefore, is 
ample testimony to his baptism^ and the facts immediately 
following it. Celsus also pretends, as Origen informs us, to 
believe the miracles of Christ ; and those of healing the sick, 
feeding ^yq thousand men, and raising the dead, are expressly 
mentioned, though they are attributed to magical influence. 
Several passages also in our Saviour's sermon on the Mount, 
are quoted verbatim ; and his predictions relating to his suf- 
ferings, death, and resurrection are recorded. Nor are the 
closing scenes of our blessed Lord's ministry noticed with less 
exactness. We meet with the treachery of Judas, and Pe- 
ter's denial of his Master; we are informed that Christ was 
bound, insulted, beaten with rods, and crucified ; — we read of 
the gall, which was given him to eat, and the vinegar to 
drink; and we are insulted with an unfeeling jest upon the 
blood and water, that flowed from our dying Redeemer's side. 
This writer mentions also some words which were uttered by 
Christ upon the Cross, and alludes to the earthquake and 
darkness that immediately followed the crucifixion. There is 
also mention made of the appearance of the angels at the se- 
pulchre, and of the manifestation of Christ to Mary Magdalen, 
and the disciples, after his resurrection. Such are many of 
the facts, and more might have been recited, relating to the 
ministry and life of our Saviour, and preserved in the re- 
maining part of the work of the author before us. And who 
is this author ? He was an infidel writer, and one of the 
greatest enemies with whom Christianity ever had to contend. 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 219 

Now, testimony such as the above to the facts recorded in the 
New Testament, would be strong proof of the truth of the 
gospel, even if recorded by a friend to the cause, or, at least, 
if recorded by an indifferent writer. But when it comes 
from the pen of a professed enemy to our religion, who, as 
such, would have denied the facts, had there been any room 
for so doing, the force of it is almost irresistible. For Celsus 
never once hints that the history itself is false, but endeavours 
from the facts themselves to disprove the credibility of the 
gospel. And the value of this testimony is infinitely increased 
by taking into the account the time at which the writer lived, 
which was but little more than a century after the very pe- 
riod at which the events themselves happened. He had, 
therefore, ample means of satisfying himself of the truth of 
the facts on which he comments ; and it is not easily credible, 
that he would have neglected those means, since the very cir- 
cumstance alone of a falsity in the narrative would at once 
invalidate the testimony of the Evangelists, and thus over- 
throw the religion which that testimony has established.' It 
is also worthy of remark, that in no one instance throughout 
his memorable attack upon Christianity, did Celsus question 
the gospels as books of history ; on the contrary, he admitted 
most of the facts related in them ; and he has borne testimony 
to the persecutions suffered by the Christians for their faith." 
— Home's Introduction, vol. i., p. 84-86. 

It is unnecessary after this to refer to the equally decisive 
testimony of Porphyry, and of the Emperor Julian. It is 
impossible to adduce any thing like the same amount of testi- 
mony in behalf of the genuineness of any other ancient record. 
The principles on which alone its validity can be denied would 
be fatal to all historical evidence, and leave the human race 
destitute of all certain information, excepting such as could be 
acquired by personal observation. 

Having thus ascertained who the witnesses are, our next 
object is to determine their truthfulness. Had they any in- 
terest in bearing witness to the facts they have recorded ? 
Their interest lay all the other way. The reward of their 
testimony was persecution and contempt. On this the evi- 
dence of Tacitus may be held as abundantly satisfac- 
torv. 



220 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANxTY. 

" Tacitus was contemporary with the apostles. Relating the 
great fire at Rome, in the tenth year of Xero's reign, he says, 
that the people imputed that calamity to the emperor, who 
(they imagined) had set fire to the city, that he might have 
the glory of rebuilding it more magnificently, and of calling it 
after his own name ; but that Xero charged the crime on the 
Christians, and, in order to give the more plausible colour to 
this calumny, he put great numbers of them to death in the 
most cruel manner. With the view of conciliating the people 
he expended great sums in adorning the city, he bestowed lar- 
gesses on those who had suffered by the fire, and offered many 
expiatory sacrifices to appease the gods. The historian's 
words are : — 'But neither human assistance, nor the largesses 
of the emperor, nor all the atonements offered to the gods, 
availed ; the infamy of that horrible transaction still adhered 
to him. To suppress, if possible, this common rumour, Xero 
procured others to be accused, and punished with exquisite 
tortures a race of men detested for their evil practices, who 
were commonly known by the name of Christians. The au- 
thor of that sect (or name) was Christus, who in the reign of 
Tiberius was punished with death, as a criminal, by the pro- 
curator Pontius Pilate. But this pestilent superstition, though 
checked for awhile, broke out afresh, not only in Judaea, where 
the evil first originated, but even in the city (of Rome), the 
common sink into which every thing filthy and abominable 
flows from all quarters of the world. At first those only were 
apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect ; afterwards 
a vast multitude discovered by them ; all of whom were con- 
demned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for 
their enmity to mankind. Their executions were so contrived 
as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were co- 
vered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be 
torn to pieces by dogs ; some were crucified ; while others, 
having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set 
up as lights in the night-time, and thus burnt to death. For 
these s^^ectacles Xero gave his own gardens, and, at the same 
time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus ; sometimes 
standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a cha- 
rioteer, and at other times driving a chariot himself; until at 
length these men, though really criminal and deserving exem- 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 221 

plarj punishment, began to be commiserated, as people who 
were destroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, but 
only to gratify the cruelty of one man.' '' — Home, p. 177-178. 

Is it still objected that the apostles are partial witnesses as 
Christians ? But what created this partiality ? How did 
they come to be Christians, but by the force of the evidence 
presented to them ? They were once far otherwise, and the 
fact of their Christianity is the strongest confirmation of the 
truth of their statements. Is it demanded that before we be- 
lieve a historical narrative, we must have it recorded by a 
writer who denounces it as false ? 

*' The silence of heathen and Jewish w^riters of that 
period, about the miracles of Christianity, has been much in- 
sisted upon by the enemies of our religion ; and has even ex- 
cited something like a painful suspicion in the breasts of 
those who are attached to its cause. Certain it is, that no 
ancient facts have come down to us, supported by a greater 
quantity of historical evidence, and better accompanied with 
all the circumstances which can confer credibility on that evi- 
dence. When we demand the testimony of Tacitus to the 
Christian miracles, we forget all the while that we can allege 
a multitude of much more decisive testimonies ; — no less than 
eight contemporary authors, and a train of succeeding writers, 
who follow one another with a closeness and a rapidity, of 
which there is no example in any other department of ancient 
history. We forget, that the authenticity of these different 
writers, and their pretensions to credit, are founded on con- 
siderations, perfectly the same in kind, though much stronger 
in degree, than what have been employed to establish the 
testimony of the most esteemed historians of former ages. For 
the history of the gospel, we behold a series of testimonies, 
more continuous, and more firmly sustained, than there is any 
other example of in the whole compass of erudition. And to 
refuse this evidence, is a proof, that, in this investigation, 
there is an aptitude in the human mind to abandon all ordi- 
dinary principles, and to be carried away by the delusions 
which w^e have already insisted on. 

*' But let us try the effect of that testimony which our an- 
tagonists demand. Tacitus has actually attested the existence 
of Jesus Christ ; the reality of such a personage; his public 



222 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

execution under the administration of Pontius Pilate ; the 
temporary check which this gave to the progress of his reli- 
gion ; its revival, a short time after his death ; its progress 
over the land of Judea, and to Rome itself, the metropolis of 
the empire ; — all this we have in a Roman historian ; and, 
in opposition to all established reasoning upon these subjects, 
it is b}^ some more firmly confided in upon his testimony, than 
upon the numerous and concurring testimonies of nearer and 
contemporary writers. But be this as it may, let us suppose 
that Tacitus had thrown one particular more into his testi- 
mony, and that his sentence had run thus : ' They had their 
denomination from Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, 
was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius 
Pilate, and who ro'^e from the dead on the third day after 
his execution, and ascended into heaven,^ Does it not strike 
every body, that however true the last piece of information 
may be, and however well established by its proper historians, 
this is not the place where we can expect to find it ? If 
Tacitus did not believe the resurrection of our Saviour, 
(which is probably the case, as he never, in all likelihood, paid 
any attention to the evidence of a faith which he was led to 
regard, from the outset, as a pernicious superstition, and a 
mere modification of Judaism,) it is not to be supposed that 
such an assertion could ever have been made by him. If 
Tacitus did believe the resurrection of our Saviour^ he gives 
us an example of what appears not to have been uncommon 
in these ages — he gives us an example of a man adhering to 
that system which interest and education recommended, in op- 
position to the evidence of a miracle which he admitted to be 
true. Still, even on this supposition, it is the most unlikely 
thing in the world, that he would have admitted the fact of 
our Saviour's resurrection into his history. It is most impro- 
bable, that a testimony of this kind would have been given, 
even though the resurrection of Jesus Christ had been ad- 
mitted-; and, therefore, the want of this testimony carries in 
it no argument that the resurrection is a falsehood. If, how- 
ever, in opposition to all probability, this testimony had been 
given, it would have been appealed to as a most striking con • 
firmation of the main fact of the evangelical history. It would 
have figured away in all our elementary treatises, and been 



TESTEMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 223 

referred to as a master- argument in every exposition of the evi- 
dences of Christianity. Infidels would have been challenged to 
believe in it on the strengtli of their own favourite evidence, the 
evidence of a classical historian ; and must have been at a loss 
how to dispose of this fact, when they saw an unbiassed heathen 
giving his round and unqualified testimony in its favour. 

" Let us now carry this supposition a step farther. Let 
us conceive that Tacitus not only believed the fact, and gave 
his testimony to it, but that he believed it so far as to become 
a Christian. Is his testimony to be refused, because he gives 
this evidence of its sincerity ? Tacitus asserting the fact, and 
remaining a heathen, is not so strong an argument for the 
truth of our Saviour's resurrection, as Tacitus asserting the 
fact and becoming a Christian in consequence of it. Yet the 
moment that this transition is made — sl transition by which, 
in point of fact, his testimony becomes stronger — in point of 
impression it becomes less ; and, by a delusion common to the 
infidel and the believer, the argument is held to be weakened 
by the very circumstance which imparts greater force to it. 
The elegant and accomplished scholar becomes a believer. The 
truth, the novelty, the importance of this new subject, withdraw 
him from every other pursuit. He shares in the common en- 
thusiasm of the cause, and gives all his talents and eloquence 
to the support of it. Instead of the Roman historian, Tacitus 
comes down to posterity in the shape of a Christian Father, 
and the high authority of his name is lost in a crowd of simi- 
lar testimonies. 

'' A direct testimony to the miracles of the Xew Testam.ent 

from the mouth of a heathen, is not to be expected. We 

cannot satisfy this demand of the infidel : but we can give 

him a host of much stronger testimonies than he is in quest of 

— the testimonies of those men who were heathens, and who 

!| embraced a hazardous and a disgraceful profession, under a 

■| deep conviction of those facts to which they gave their testi- 

! mony. * Oh, but you now land us in the testimony of Chris- 

I tians !* This is. very true ; but it is the very fact of their 

I I being Christians in which the strength of the argument lies : 
and in each of the numerous Fathers of the Christian church, 

j' we see a stronger testimony than the required testimony of the 
, heathen Tacitus. We see men who, if they had not been 

i 



224 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

Christians, would have risen to as high an eminence as 
Tacitus in the literature of the times ; and whose direct testi- 
monies to the gospel history would, in that case, have been 
most impressive, even to the mind of an infidel. And are these 
testimonies to be less impressive, because they were preceded 
by conviction, and sealed by martyrdom V — Dr Chalmers^ 
Works, vol. iii., p. 250-254. 

But let us now endeavour directly to estimate the force of 
the testimony given by the apostles. 

'•' Nothing is more evident than the utter disgrace w^hich was 
annexed by the world at large to the profession of Christi-' 
anity at that period. Tacitus calls it ' superstitio exitiahilis/ 
and accuses the Christians of enmity to mankind. By Epic- 
tetus and others, their heroism is termed obstinacy ; and it 
was generally treated by the Roman governors as the infatu- 
ation of a miserable and despised people. There was none of 
that glory annexed to it which blazes around the martyrdom 
of a patriot, or a philosopher. That constancy which, in an- 
other cause, would have made them illustrious, was held to be 
a contemptible folly, which only exposed them to the derision 
and insolence of the multitude. A name and a reputation in 
the world might sustain the dying moments of Socrates or Re- 
gulus ; but what earthly principles can account for the intre- 
pidity of those poor and miserable outcasts, who consigned 
themselves to a voluntary martyrdom in the cause of their re- 
ligion ? 

" Having premised these observations, we offer the follow- 
ing alternative to the mind of every candid inquirer. The 
first Christians either delivered a sincere testimony, or they 
imposed a story upon the world which they knew to be a fa- 
brication. 

*' The persecutions to which the first Christians voluntarily 
exposed themselves, compel us to adopt the first part of the 
alternative. It is not to be conceived that a man would re- 
sign fortune, and character, and life, in the assertion of what 
he knew to be a falsehood. The first Christians must have 
believed their story to be true ; and it only remains to prove, 
that, if they believed it to be true, it must be true indeed. 

"A voluntary martyrdom must be looked upon as the 
highest possible evidence which it is in the power of man to 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 225 

give of his sincerity. The martyrdom of Socrates has never 
been questioned, as an undeniable proof of the sincere devo- 
tion of his mind to the principles of that philosophy for which 
he suffered. The death of Archbishop Cranmer will be al- 
io v\'ed by all to be a decisive evidence of his sincere rejection 
of what he conceived to be the errors of Popery, and his 
thorough conviction of the truth of the opposite system. When 
the council of Geneva burnt Servetus, no one will question the 
sincerity of the latter's belief, however much he may question 
the truth of it. Xow, in all these cases, the proof goes no 
farther than to establish the sincerity of the martyr's belief. 
It goes but a little way, indeed, in establishing the justness of 
it. This is a different question. A man may be mistaken, 
though he may be sincere. His errors, if they are not seen to 
be such, will exercise all the influence and authority of truth 
over him. Martyrs have bled on the opposite sides of the 
queition. It is impossible, then, to rest on this circumstance 
as an argument for the truth of either system ; but the argu- 
ment is alsvays deemed incontrovertible, in as far as it goes to 
establish the sincerity of each of the parties, and that both 
died in the firm conviction of the doctrines which they pro- 
fessed. 

'• Xow, the martyrdom of the first Christians stands dis* 
tinguished from all other examples by this circumstance, that 
it not merely proves the sincerity of the martyr's belief, but it 
also proves that what he believed was true. In other cases of 
martyrdom, the sufferer, when he lays down his life, gives his 
testimony to the truth of an opinion. In the case of the 
Christians, when they laid down their lives, they gave their 
testimony to the truth of a fact, of which they affirmed them- 
selves to be the eye and the ear-witnesses. The sincerity of 
both testimonies is unquestionable ; but it is only in the latter 
case that the truth of the testimony follows as a necessary 
consequence of its sincerity. An opinion comes under the 
cognizance of the understanding, ever liable, as we all know, 
to error and delusion. A fact comes under the cognizance of 
the senses, which have ever been esteemed as infallible, when 
they give their testimony to such plain, and obvious, and pal- 
pable appearances, as those which make up the evangelical 
story. We are still at liberty to question the philosophy of 

NO. XV. 



226 EYIDENCES OF CHRISTIAKITY. 

Socrates, or the orthodoxy of Cranmer and Servetus ; but if 
we were told by a Christian teacher, in the solerLnity of his 
dying hour, and with the dread apparatus of martyrdom be- 
fore him, that he saw Jesus after he had risen from the dead ; 
that he conversed with him many days ; that he put his hand 
into the print of his sides ; and, in the ardour of his joyful 
conviction, exclaimed, "My Lord, and my God!'' we should 
feel that there was no truth in the world, did this language 
and this testimony deceive us. 

" If Christianity be not true, then the first ChrisUaus must 
have been mistaken as to the subject of their testimony. This 
supposition is destroyed by the nature of the subject. It was 
not testimony to a doctrine which might deceive the under- 
standing. It was something more than testimony to a dream, 
or a trance, or a midnight fancy, which might deceive the im- 
agination. It was testimony to a multitude and a succession 
of palpable facts, which could never have deceived the senses, 
and which preclude all possibility of mistake, even though it 
had been the testimony only of one individual. But when, in 
addition to this, we consider, that it is the testimony, not of 
one, but of many individuals ; that it is a story repeated in 
a variety of forms, but substantially the same ; that it is the 
concurring testimony of different eye-witnesses, or the com- 
panions of eye-witnesses — we may, after this, take refuge in 
the idea of falsehood and collusion ; but it is not to be ad- 
mitted, that these eight different writers of the New Testa- 
ment could have all blundered the matter with such method, 
and such uniformity. 

^' We know that, in spite of the magnitude of their suffer- 
ings, there are infidels who, driven from the first part of the 
alternative, have recurred to the second, and have affirmed, 
that the glory of e«^tablishing a new religion, induced the first 
Christians to assert, and to persist in asserting, what they 
knew to be a falsehood. But they forget, that we have 
the concurrence of two parties to the truth of Christianity, 
and that it is the conduct only of one of the parties, which can 
be accounted for by the supposition in question. The two 
parties are the teachers and the taught. The former may 
aspire to the glory of founding a new faith ; but what glory 
did the latter propose to themselves from being the dupes of 



TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES FOR THE TRUTH. 227 

an imposition so ruinous to every earthly interest, and held in 
such low and disgraceful estimation by the world at large ? 
Abandon the teachers of Christianity to every imputation, 
which infidelity, on the rack for conjectures to give plausibi- 
lity to its system, can devise; how shall we explain the concur- 
rence of its disciples ? There may be a glory in leading, but 
we see no glory in being led. If Christianity were false, and 
Paul had the effrontery to appeal to his ^yb hundred living 
witnesses, whom he alleges to have seen Christ after his resur- 
rection, the submissive acquiesence of his disciples remains a 
very inexplicable circumstance. The same Paul, in his Epistles 
to the Corinthians, tells them that some of them had the gift 
of healing, and the power of workirg miracles ; and that the 
signs of an apostle had been wrought among them in Vv'onders 
and mighty deeds. A man aspiring to the glory of an ac- 
credited teacher, would never have committed himself on a sub- 
ject, where his falsehood could have been so readily exposed. 
And in the veneration with which we know his Epistles to have 
been preserved by the church of Corinth, we have not merely 
the testimony of their writer to the truth of the Christian 
miracle?, but the testimony of a whole people, who had no in- 
terest in being deceived. 

" Had Christianity been false, the reputution of its first 
teachers lay at the mercy of every individual among the nu- 
merous proseljtes whom they had gained to their system. It 
may not be competent for an unlettered peasant to detect 
the absurdity of a doctrine ; but he can at all times lift his 
testimony against a fact, said to have happened in his presence, 
and under the observation of his senses. Xow it so happens, 
that in a number of the Epistles, there are allusions to, or ex- 
press intimations of, the miracles that had been wrought in the 
different churches to which these Epistles are addressed. How 
comes it, if it be at all a fabrication, that it was never ex- 
posed? Vre know, that some of the disciples were driven, by 
the terrors of persecuting violence, to resign their profession. 
How should it ha]pen, that none of them ever attempted to 
vindicate their apostacy, by laying open the artifice and in- 
sincerity of their Christian teachers? We may be sure that 
such a testim^ony would have been highly acceptable to the ex- 
isting authorities of that period. The Jews would have made 



228 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the most of it ; and the vigilant and discerning officers of the 
Roman government would not have failed to turn it to account. 
The mystery would have been exposed and laid open, and the 
curiosity of latter ages would have been satisfied as to the 
wonderful and unaccountable steps by which a religion could 
make such head in the world, though it rested its whole authority 
on facts ; the falsehood of which was accessible to all who were at 
the trouble to inquire about them. But no ! We hear of no such 
testimony from the apostates of that period. We read of some, 
who, agonized at the reflection of their treachery, returned to 
their first profession, and expiated, by martyrdom, the guilt 
which they felt they had incurred by their dereliction of the 
truth. This furnishes a strong example of the power of con- 
viction ; and when we join with it, that it is conviction in the 
integrity of those teachers who appealed to miracles which had 
been wrought among them, it appears to us a testimony in 
favour of our religion which is altogether irresistible." — Dr 
Chalmers' Worhs, vol. iii. p. 217-223, 



{ 229 ) 



LECTURE XL 

ON THE EVIDENCE FEOM MIEACLES. 

BY THE EEY. W. WILSON. 



Had we been now for the first time to examine the evi- 
dence from miracles, our duty would have been very simple, 
and would have consisted, first of all, in a narrative of the 
miraculous fact, and of the circumstances in which it occurred, 
and then of an investigation into the testimony on which our 
belief in the fact was claimed. But our subject does not stand 
so unencumbered. During the last century it has formed a 
fruitful subject of ingenious and learned investigation. It 
has been asserted that a miracle is incapable of proof, that, 
whatever amount of testimony may be adduced in support of 
it, we are bound unhesitatingly to reject it, because the natural 
improbability of a miracle is so strong that it cannot be over- 
borne by the evidence of testimony. 

This objection, first stated by David Hume, has given a new 
complexion, as well as a new interest, to a very important 
branch, of the Christian evidences. It is right to state the 
objection in the author's own words: "A miracle," he says, 
" is a violation of the laws of nature ; and, as a firm and un- 
alterable experience has established these laws, the proof 
against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as en- 
tire as any argument from experience can possibly be ima- 
gined." Having enforced and illustrated this statement, he 
concludes his argument as follows : — " Upon the whole, then, 
it appears that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever 
amounted to a probability, much less to a proof; and that, 
even supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed 



230 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITT. 

bj another proof, derived from the very nature of the fact 
which it would endeavour to establish. It is experience only 
which gives authority to human testimony ; and it is the same 
experience which assures us of the laws of nature. When, 
therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have 
nothing to do but subtract the one from the other, and em- 
brace an opinion, either on the one side or on the other, with 
that assurance which arises from the remainder. But, accord- 
ing to the principle here explained, this subtraction with re- 
gard to all popular religions amounts to an entire annihilation , 
and therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human 
testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make 
it a just foundation for any such system of religion." The 
argument, substantially, is this : That we have never expe- 
rienced a violation of the laws of nature, but that we have 
often experienced the falsehood of human testimony, — that, 
consequently, it is not in the power of testimony to establish 
the truth of such a violation, because this would be to make 
the weaker experience prevail over the stronger — to give cre- 
dit to what is uncertain and variable, rather than to what is 
fixed and unalterable. 

The argument is very ingenious, and wears an aspect of 
considerable probability. Tt has been much relied on by un- 
believers, and has engaged the attention of some of the ablest 
writers on the Christian evidences. It is necessary that we 
should dispose of it before the weight and character of the tes- 
timony on behalf of miracles can be made to tell with effect 
upon the mind. 

Our first remark is, that Mr Hume's elaborate argument is, 
after all, little better than an ingenious sophism. It assumes 
the very thing which it was incumbent upon him to prove. 
By asserting that we have an unalterable experience of the 
constancy of the laws of nature, it is not only assumed that 
these laws have never been violated, but that a violation of 
them is impossible. For, whatever experience may testify of 
the constancy of the laws of nature, it cannot assure us that 
they are unalterable, unless it be assumed that the laws of na- 
ture are God. The argument is, theref)re, in its essence 
atheistic. Tt amounts to a denial, not only of the fact of the 
Christian miracles, but to a denial of the being of a God. On 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 231 

the supposition that there is a God, the laws of nature cannot 
be assumed as unalterably constant. They are subject to His 
control, as they have their origin in His will. That which I 
make out of previously existing materials, and adjust so as to 
form into an ingenious piece of mechanism, in so far as I have 
been the maker of it, I have an absolute control over it, in the 
regulation of its movements, in stopping it, pulling it to 
pieces, and re-adjusting it. The Creator occupies a higher 
relation to the universe which he has framed. My power over 
matter is limited by the laws which have been impressed upon 
it. These did not originate with me, and I have no power 
over them. But the material of the universe is of God. The 
nature of that material has been imparted by Him ; and con- 
sequently he has over matter itself — in its existence and in 
its conditions — the same power which I have over the move- 
ments of a machine which I have constructed. The fact of the 
existence of a God removes, indeed, the antecedent improba- 
bility of a miracle. The laws of nature become, then, nothing 
else than God's ordinary method of governing the universe. 
To say that these laws are unalterable, is to limit the power 
and purposes of God within the bounds of his ordinary admin- 
istration. It is to denude him of control over the universe he 
has formed, and to assert that because he commonly acts in one 
way he is incapable of actins; in any other way. The denial 
of the possibility of miricles has its origin much deeper, we are 
afraid, than the insufficiency of the evidence adduced to 
establish them. It assumes that, if there be a God, he does 
not, or cannot, really exercise any present government in the 
world. It removes him to an inaccessible distance from the 
business and the responsibilities of men. It gives them 
something as a real, uncontrollable power, in the laws of na- 
ture, which it teaches them to reco^jnise as their only God. 
This is agreeable to the natural disposition of men who do 
not like to retain God in their knowledge ; and who, from the 
time of Adam, have sought to hide themselves from his pre- 
sence. Let it be granted that there is a God, the living pre- 
sent Governor of the universe, and a violation of the laws of 
nature is not an improbable, far less an impossible event. He 
may have purposes to serve which cannot be accomplished by 
the ordinary methods of His government, and in the execu- 



232 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tion of these what improbability is there that he eJBPect his 
designs by new and unknown agents? 

Another assumption in Mr Hume's argument is, that there 
have been no miracles. He asserts an unalterable experience 
in favour of the constancy of the laws of nature. But if 
miracles be true, these laws have not been invariably con- 
stant. It is asserted in the records of the past, that these 
laws, at various times in the history of the world, have been 
violated — that God has, in various departments of nature, in- 
terposed his omnipotent power, and manifested his own pre- 
sence, for the purpose of exciting the attention of men to the 
truth He had to communicate. It may be consistent with 
reason and fair argument to attempt to prove that these 
records are false. Our objection to the argument with which 
we are dealing is, that it takes this for granted. It is based 
upon the hypothesis which it is its declared object to establish. 
The argument is needless, if it be taken for granted that the 
laws of nature have never been violated. It is what logicians 
call a petitio principii, that is, it assumes as true what was to 
be proved. 

It is not unimportant also to observe, that when the insuffi- 
ciency of human testimony to establish the fact of a miracle 
is insisted on, because a miracle is contrary to an invariable 
experience of the constancy of the laws of nature, that the 
evidence on which we conclude in favour of the constancy of 
nature is, after all, the evidence of human testimony. The 
way in which I am assured that the operations of nature are 
so constant as to deserve the name of laws, is not that I am 
myself cognizant of these laws in their various manifesta- 
tions. My experience, strictly so called, is limited within a 
very narrow range. My opportunities of personal observa- 
tion have been comparatively few. The duration of my life 
embraces a very minute section of time. But I know the con- 
stancy of nature's operations from a manifold testimony. 
Others have observed what I have not — and the limit of my 
life does not comprehend the time during which I know these 
laws have been in operation. My observation, through 
means of others, has been extended over many generations. 
But if we attempt to collect and compare the testimonies of 
men on this subject, to what does it amount ? Does it land 



EVIDE^'CE FROM MIRACLES. 233 

US in the conclusion that the laws of nature have been always 
inviolable ? It is not so. And if we are to credit human testi- 
mony when it affirms the constancy of nature, what should 
hinder us to credit the best authenticated of all human testi- 
mony when it affirms a miracle ? 

I observe still further, that Mr Hume's argument contains 
a fallacy which is not very difficult of detection. He asserts 
that we have a uniform experience in favour of the constancy 
of nature — that we have no such experience of the constancy of 
human testimony — and that, consequently, to believe a miracle 
is to regulate our belief not according, but contrary to experi- 
ence. But the question occurs, is a miracle contrary to our 
experience? and we answer, that it is impossible it should be 
so, for we have no experience whatever in the matter. The 
ordinary operations of the laws of nature do not afford us an 
experience contrary to a miracle. They merely fail to give 
us such experience. A miracle is a fact not in conformity 
with our ordinary experience ; it is not contradictory to it. 
Were Mr Hume's assumption true, that we had a uniform ex- 
perience contrary to a miracle, it would indeed be impossible for 
us to believe it. But there is no such incredibility attachable to 
it when we regard a miracle as simply a fact not in conformity 
with our ordinary experience. If, for example, I affirm that 
a dead body has been raised from the grave, I assert the fact 
of a miracle, but I assert nothing contrary to experience. I 
assert a fact w^hich lies altogether beyond the range of my ex- 
perience, and which cannot for that very reason be contrary 
to it. And this is true of all miracles. The very definition 
of the term removes them out of the ground of common ex- 
perience, and within the range of that experience, therefore, 
I can find nothing to contradict them. My experience, which 
lies in an entirely different field, can furnish me with no evidence 
in their favour, but as little does it provide me with any 
evidence to confute them. My experience does not teach me 
tha.t dead men are raised to life again, but neither does it 
teach me anything to contradict such a fact. To bring a 
miracle within the category of a contrary experience, the fol- 
lowing condition would be necessary. My experience must 
relate to the same fact of which a miracle is affirmed. For 
example, were it affirmed that the same man whom I know to 



234 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

be dead, and whose body I know to be mouldering in the 
grave, was actually aliv^e and walking on the earth, I could 
not believe the statement, because it would be contrary to my 
experience. Bat were I standing beside the grave, and did I 
see him whom I knew to be dead come forth out of it — -or were I 
to search a grave in which I knew a body had been deposited, 
and were I to find it empty, and afterwards to see him who 
was dead actually alive again, I am not perplexed by contrary 
experiences. There is simply a new fact presented to me, 
which I am bound to investigate, and to ascertain whether it 
be a reality. There is nothing here contrary to my experience. 
It is an experience altogether new. Xothing conformable to 
such a fact had ever occurred before within the range of my 
knowledge, but I certainly know nothing contradictory of it. 

Mr Hume has imagined the case of a man, an inhabitant of 
the torrid zone, who had never heard of ice, being told of the 
properties of frozen water. It would be difficult unquestion- 
ably to convince such a man of the fact; but, in asserting it, 
we do not affirm what is contrary to his experience. Were 
we to say to such an one that we had seen water made as solid 
as pavement, capable of bearing upon its smooth snrface men 
and horses, we would perhaps be listened to with an air of 
incredulity. He knows nothing of the property of water of 
which we speak, and of the effect upon it of intense cold ; and 
therefore, it would be hard to persuade him of the reality of 
such a fact. But Mr Hume's illustration is peculiarly un- 
fortunate for strengthening his argument. He thought he 
acted a part worthy of a philosopher, in rejecting the claim 
of miracles to belief as ridiculous — in refusing to investigate 
and weigh the claims of the testimony adduced in their behalf, 
and in pronouncing them impossible. Would he give the like 
credit to his imagined Indian Emir for acting a similar part ? 
Would he be worthy of a rank among philosophers, in laugh- 
ing to scorn the assertion that water could be converted into 
ice ? Yet such a transformation of water would be to the Emir 
a miracle ? There is nothing within the range of his experience 
to bear out such a fact. He never saw or heard of water made 
a solid, and capable of bearing heavy bodies on its surface. But 
he has no contrary experience, and his part would be more wor- 
thy of philosophic wisdom to credit the fact on competent tes- 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 235 

timony. This is very mucTi the state of the question as be- 
tween believers and Mr Hume on the credibility of miracles. 
They require strong testimony to establish them ; but to assert 
that testimony is incapable of proving them, is just to affirm 
that no amount of evidence can or ought to convince an inha- 
bitant of the torrid zone that there was such a substance as 
ice. The existence of ice is a fact, whether he believe it or 
no. To disbelieve it is to shut himself out from an interest- 
ing department of know^ledge. The miracles of the Xew Tes- 
tament are facts w^hich demand investigation. To say that 
they are ridiculous and incapable of proof would be only to 
keep ourselves in ignorance, and would not by any means be 
an evidence of our superior wisdom. By dealing with all 
knowledge in this way, we would prevent the possibility of 
its extension. Every new fact, not in conformity with our 
past experience, would be summarily rejected, as unworthy of 
credit. And thus those men who make a special boast of en- 
lightenment and the progress of reason would, on their prin- 
ciple, were it consistently acted out, lay a sudden and violent 
arrest upon it, and shut us out for ever from any increase of 
knowledge. 

It may appear surprising how a mind so acute and subtle 
as that of ]Mr Hume should have been betrayed into a fallacy 
so gross as to assert that which is not conformable to expe- 
rience to be contrary to it. We are disposed to trace it to 
the habitual forgetfulness of the presence and interposition of 
God in the government of the world which so eminently cha- 
racterised his modes of thinking. Thus, when he speaks of 
miracles, the whole statement that he has actually before his 
mind is the assertion that inen have performed such deeds. 
This, we apprehend, is the reason why he affirms them to be 
contrary to experience. On such a supposition, his argument 
contains no fallacy. To say that men have raised the dead, 
opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped the ears of the deaf, 
commanded with effect the lame to walk, healed diseases by a 
word, fed thousands with a few loaves, is to assert what is 
contrary to experience. We have experience of what men 
are competent to do, and we know that such acts as these are 
not within their power. It is because we know this that we 
assert them to be miracles. *^ We know," said Nicodemus, 



236 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

*' that thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do 
those miracles that thou doest except God be with him." But, 
while it would be contrary to experience to assert that men 
could work miracles, it is not contrary to experience to assert 
that God can give men power to perform them. Miracles, as 
a proof of divine truth, presuppose this. In adducing them 
as evidence, we assume that it is contrary to experience to as- 
sert that they are performed by man. We infer from the 
fact of the miracle just what Nicodemus inferred from the fact 
of the miracles of Jesus, that God is with the man who works 
them. But when God is thus brought in as the actor, there 
ceases to be anything in a miracle contrary to experience. 

But, to our mind, the most complete and conclusive answer 
to Mr Hume's argument has yet to be adduced. For this an- 
swer we are indebted to Dr Chahners, and it constitutes the 
most valuable addition which he has made to the literature of 
the Christian evidences. Granting that Mr Hume's premises 
are true, and that, in establishing the truth of a miracle, we 
have a conflicting experience — granting that our confidence 
in the constancy of nature is the result of experience, and 
that our confidence in human testimony is also the result of 
experience — granting that, as Mr Hume would have it, when 
a miracle is alleged, we have to balance the probabilities for 
and against it, that the probability for a miracle is at least 
as strong as he asserts it to be, we would yet quarrel with 
his conclusion, and think it possible to show that the fact of a 
miracle may be established on the strength of human testi- 
mony. Our observations w^ill be limited to the establishment 
of the three following positions : — 

1. That there is power in a single testimony to balance the 
improbability of a miracle. It is quite true, as Mr Hume al- 
leges, that human testimony, taken in the gross, is variable, 
and not always to be depended upon ; but it is also true that 
testimony uttered by men of a certain character, and under 
certain circumstances, is as invariable as any sequence in na- 
ture. Some men have told falsehoods, but from this general 
fact it would be unjust and unreasonable to conclude that on 
this account there was an uncertainty attached to human tes- 
timony by whomsoever uttered and in whatever circumstances. 
The question is not, has testimony ever deceived us, but has 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 237 

such testimony as we have for the Christian miracles ever de- 
ceived us ? When Mr Hume affirms that our experience in 
the truth of testimony is not so uniform as our experience in 
the constancy of nature, we would ask, " of what testimony is 
it that our experience in its truth is not so uniform ? We 
allow the assertion in regard to that testimony which hears 
upon it the marks of imposture. We farther allow it of the 
testimony which, without any glaring marks of imposture, 
may have the gainly and prepossessing appearance of truth, 
without its reality. But we cannot allow it of all testimony. 
We affirm that a testimony is conceivahle — nay, that a testi- 
mony has often been given having such marks and character- 
istics of truth accumulated upon it, and in such circumstances of 
unlikelihood or moral impossibility of its falsehood, that we 
can aver with the utmost confidence of such testimony that it 
never has deceived us, and never will." On this point Dr 
Chalmers thus speaks with his characteristic eloquence : — 

" Give me an individual with all the indications, both in his 
manner and conduct, of perfect moral honesty — let me recog- 
nise, whether in his oral or written testimony, a directness, 
and a simplicity, and a high tone of virtuousness, and withal 
a consistent while minutely circumstantial narrative, which all 
experience declares to be the signs and the characteristics of 
an upright testimony — let me understand that he forfeited 
every interest which is dear to nature, the countenance of 
friends, the affection of relatives, the comfort and security of 
home, the blessings of domestic society, the distinctions as well 
as the pleasures of affluence, and lastly the enjoyment of life 
itself, in a resolute adherence to the avowals which he made, 
and which had brought upon him such a weight of persecution 
and odium — let me plainly see that tliere is nothing in the 
whole exhibition which can either mark the falsehood of im- 
posture or the frenzy of enthusiasm — let me know the subject- 
matter of his attestation to be some palpable fact, addressed 
to senses which could not be deceived, because, instead of a 
momentary glare, there was daily and repeated converse with 
a visible thing and where both the sight and the touch lent to 
each other a mutual confirmation — let me further make the 
supposition that the statement in question was the resurrec- 
tion of one from the dead, and who had been seen to expire 



238 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

by thousands of assembled witnesses. — If it be objected that 
the truth of such a fact would imply a phenomenon wholly un- 
exampled in the history of the species, our reply is, that the 
falsehood of such a testimony would imply a phenomenon 
equally unexampled in the history of the species — if it be said 
that we have no experience of such an event turning out to be 
real, it may be said as truly, that we have no experience of 
such an averment turning out to be fallacious ; and the one 
singularity, if it do not overmatch the other, will at least neu- 
tralize it. There is nothing in the occasional falsehood of 
other and inferior grades of testimony, which can inflict discre- 
dit or disparagement upon this. It stands aloof from all the sus- 
picion which attaches to these, because exempted from all those 
similarities which make it questionable like these. The reno- 
vation of a lifeless corpse that had been laid in the tomb, but 
emerged from it again in the full possession of wonted acti- 
vity and consciousness, is said to be a miracle— but equal, at 
least, would be the miracle of either a falsehood or an error in 
him, who throughcut the whole of a life devoted to the high- 
est objects of philanthropy, made constant assertion of his 
having seen, and handled, and companied with the risen man 

who maintained this testimony amid the terrors and the 

pains of martyrdom — and in the words of such an exclama- 
tion as, ' Lord Jesus receive my spirit,' breathed it out as the 
last and the dying utterance of his faith." 

Now our position is that a single testimony of this kind ba- 
lances the improbability of a miracle. Grant that a miracle 
contrad'cts all our experience, it is equally true that the false- 
hood of such a testimony contradicts all our experience. The 
evidence is equal on both sides. If it be asserted that I can- 
not believe the miracle because against all experience, I an- 
swer, neither can I disbelieve such a witness, for his false- 
hood would be equally against all experience. It may be 
that by a single witness I cannot establish the truth of a mi- 
racle, but by his evidence I at least neutralize its improbabi- 
lity. In the face of such testimony I am left in a state of 
doubt. I have conflicting experiences, both of equal strength, 
and in regard to both of which I am able to say they have 
never deceived me. 

2, But it is important to notice that there may be a power 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 239 

in repeated observations to overbalance the improbability of 
a miracle. Suppose the case of a man who w^as himself the 
witness of a miracle. At first sight he might doubt the evi- 
dence of his senses, which informed him of a fact so extraor- 
dinary. If he has the opportunity of only a single observa- 
tion, it will be necessary to assure himself that it was of such 
a kind that he would not be deceived in it. But sup- 
pose the case of a miracle which he can test by repeated ob- 
servations, and of the reality of which he can be assured by 
the testimony of more than one of his senses. By the repetition 
of his observation, he feels that he has confirmed the evidence 
in favour of the miracle in such a way that he can no longer 
doubt its reality. By adding the sense of touch and the sense 
of hearing, to the evidence of his eye-sight, he obtains a mani- 
fold confirmatory testimony which will compel his assent to 
any fact, however extraordinary. Suppose such a case as 
that of Thomas called Didymus, who doubted the fact of the 
resurrection of Jesus. He sees him whom he had known so 
long and so well alive again — he hears the familiar tones of 
his voice — he feels upon his body the marks of his death- 
wounds — the truth is forced upon his reluctant mind by many 
concurring circumstances. He is no longer faithless, but be- 
lieving, and falls at the feet of the living one exclaiming, My 
Lord and m.y God. Such was the process by which he was 
convinced of the truth of a miracle. He had in favour of it 
an amount of evidence which was not merely sufficient, but al- 
together overwhelming. 

Now, on the supposition that Thomas was honest, that it 
was morally impossible he could tell a lie about tiiat particu- 
lar fact, we have in his evidence not only a truthful testimony 
of such a kind as fairly to meet and balance the improbability 
of a miracle, but we have also the advantage of his repeated 
observations — the concurring testimony of sight, and touch, 
and hearing. If we believe his word — if we think him an 
honest witness —we are through his instrumentality really put 
in possession of all that evidence by which the fact was sub- 
i stantiatcd to his own mind. Had his testimony stood alone 
therefore, we would not have been left in the even balance ol 
] doubt, but would have been constrained to believe the miracle 



240 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

of the resurrection on the manifold evidence by which he be- 
came convinced of it. 

3. There is a power in the concurring testimony of several 
independent witnesses greatly to overbalance the improbability 
of a miracle. This testimony we have for the truth of all the 
Christian miracles. The multiple force of ordinary concur- 
ring testimonies, and how much more of such testimonies, we 
may be permitted to give in the words of Dr Chalmers : — 

'' Of course, the testimonies must be supposed independent of 
each other. And then, we are not to wonder at the speedy 
and perfect assurance which, by their means, we obtain of many 
events, although they should have no other evidence to rest 
upon. Such, after all, is the majority of truth to falsehood 
in the world — that, on the strength even of one of its every- 
day testimonies, we place implicit reliance on the truth of an 
event, whereof previously we had no expectation. Of how 
manv of our familiars may it be said, that the chance is at 
least as a thousand to one, of his speaking truth rather than 
falsehood. Let two such concur, then, in any deposition — and, 
in as far as the probability of an event depends on the integrity 
of the witnesses, there are the chances of no less than a million to 
one in its favour. There must, then, be the inherent impro- 
bility of a million to one in the event itself, ere, with such a 
support from testimony, it can be dismissed as unworthy of 
credit. It will be seen, by what an immense superiority of 
evidence, on the addition of a third or a fourth or a certain 
number of witnesses, even this or indeed any definite impro- 
bability might be overcome — an evidence, which grows and 
gathers in rapid multiple progression by the addition of every 
new witness — provided always, that each depones on his own 
independent knowledge, and that they have no collusion with 
one another. 

" It is thus that, had we good enough separate testimonies, 
we mi^^ht obtain by their conjunction, an evidence in behalf 
of a miracle that would outweigh to any amount the impro- 
bability which is inherent in the miracle itself. It is quite 
true that the establishment of a miracle requires stronger 
testimony than an ordinary event does — yet let that stronger 
testimony only be multiplied as much as the weaker, and the 



EYIBEXCE FROM MIRACLES. 24 1 

result would be, that the miracle should not only he as 
credible, but indefinitely and to any extent more credible, 
than the ordinary event. For example, let the improba- 
bility of a miracle be estimated at a million, and attested by 
three witnesses for each of whose separate integrities there 
is the probability of a million — then from the testimony 
of any one of these witnesses we obtain an equivalent or 
equipoise to the improbability of the miracle — leaving the 
product of the remaining two integrities, or a million of mil- 
lions to represent the strength of our reason for believing the 
alleged miracle to be true. Should the ordinary event, on 
the other hand, have, in certain given circumstances, the im- 
probability of a thousand attached to it, and be attested by 
three witnesses for each of whose integrities there is the pro- 
bability of a thousand — then, as before, would the deposition 
of one of these witnesses neutralize the improbability of the 
event ; but the joint testimony of the remaining two witnesses 
would only afford the probability of a thousand times a thou- 
sand, or of one million to represent the strength of our rea- 
son for believing the alleged event to be true. In other 
words, we should, in the respective circumstances now stated, 
have a million times better reason for believing in the truth 
of the miracle than in that of the ordinary event. Sceptics 
complain of the tax on their credulity, when tbey are called 
upon to put faith in miracles. Let them have a care, lest 
they, all the time, should, in reference to the miracles of the 
gospel, be resisting a claim upon their belief many million- 
fold greater than is possessed even by the commonest events 
in the history of past ages.'' 

To refuse our assent to a miracle is to disbelieve what is 
not in conformity to our experience — to disbelieve such evi- 
dence is to contradict all experience. The witnesses to the resur- 
rection of Christ, for example, were in such a position that they 
could not be deceived as to fact. It was a fact which did not 
accord with their expectations. They saw the risen Jesus fre- 
quently, one by one, and when they were assembled together, 
they heard him speak — they knew his person — they saw him 
in various circumstances — in different places. If they were 
deceived, it was by a concurrence of circumstances more extra- 
ordinary than any miracle. If they invented the story, their 

NO. XVI. 



24:2 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANfTY. 

adherence to it in the face of contumely and death is more ex- 
traordinary than any miracle. " If," says Dr Paley, " twelve 
men, whose probity and good sense I had long known, should 
reriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a mi- 
racle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible 
that they should be deceived ; if the governor of the country, 
hearing a rumour of this account, should call these men into 
his presence, and offer them a short proposal either to confess 
the imposture or submit to be tied up to a gibbet if they 
should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there existed 
any falsehood or imposture in the case ; if this threat were 
communicated to them separately, yet with no different effect ; 
if it was at last executed ; if I myself saw them one after ano- 
ther consenting to be racked, burned, or strangled, rather than 
give up the truth of their account; still, if Mr Hume's rule 
be my guide, I am not to believe them. Xow I undertake to 
say that there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not 
believe them, or who would defend such incredulity. '^ 

Supposing it settled then that by such testimony as we have 
we can conclusively establish the truth of the Christian mira- 
cles, are we entitled to conclude at once that the New Testa- 
ment is a revelation from God ? Are miracles of themselves 
a conclusive proof of a revelation ? Was the argument of 
Nicodemus really a good one, when be concluded in favour of 
the divine mission of Jesus, from the fact that Jesus was a 
worker of miracles ? These questions resolve themselves into 
the ulterior and more direct one : Is God the only agent in 
the universe that can perform a miracle? We dare not an- 
swer this question absolutely in the affirmative. To do so 
would require an amount of information greatly beyond our 
reach. We really do not know what agencies exist in the 
universe. The Scriptures themselves indicate the existence 
of an order of beings vastly superior to man in intelligence 
and power, and the immeasurable distance between God and 
man is stated to be at least partly occupied by incorporeal 
beings of various orders and dignities — ^beings to us invisible 
yet real agents, carrying on their operations in the world of 
which we form a part. These agents the Bible tells us are 
good and evil, and they exercise immense power in their se- 
veral departments. Has not the Bible, in communicating this 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 2 i3 

information, rendered invalid any argument in favour of its 
divine authority, grounded on the fact of miracles ? Grant 
the fact of miraculous agency, we seem as far as ever from 
the fact of divine agency. Can we measure the powers for 
good or evil possessed by these unseen spirits ? Can we say 
of any of the miracles of the New Testament that they are 
impossible to such agents ? 

Still further, the Bible, with that fearlessness which is 
characteristic of truth, in communicating the fact of the exis- 
tence of such spirits, not only suggests the possibility of mir- 
acles being performed by them, but it tells us of miracles that 
have been wrought apparently by another than God. Li 
giving the record of the miracles performed by Zvloses in the 
presence of the King of Egypt, it also assures us- that the 
same miracles were performed by the magicians of that coun- 
try. When the rod of Moses was cast down it became a 
serpent, and the magicians did in like manner with their en- 
chantments ; for they cast down every man his rod, and they 
became serpents. The miracle of Moses was performed for 
the express purpose of proving that he had been sent by God. 
Was it sufficient of itself to establish that fact ? If so, were 
the magicians also sent by God ? If the record be true they 
were not. It is beside the purpose to allege, as has been 
done, that the miracles of the magicians were really perform- 
ed by God — that the result of their enchantments was entirely 
unexpected by them — and that God caused their rods to be- 
come serpents that they might be confounded by the spectacle, 
and be led to see that the hand of God was really at work in. 
the production of it. We say such an argument is beside the 
purpose, because, though we were to grant it to be true, we 
are as far as ever from a solution of the question : Does a 
miracle afford an absolute i^roof of a diy'ine mission P Nay, 
it serves only yet farther to perplex the question, for if God 
performs miracles by those whom he has not sent, it seems 
impossible by miracles to prove a divine mission. W^hether 
the miracle be expected or designed by such men or not, the 
-fact remains the same. We cannot reduce to evidence the 
designs and expectations of men. The sole matter of evidence 
is the fact of the miracle. The sole question is. Does the 
miracle prove a divine mission ? It would appear on the testi- 



-•^4: EViDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

mony of the Bible itself that it does not. For the Bible re- 
cords the fact that miracles have been performed through the 
agency of men, of whom it avers that thej were not sent bj 
God. 

Doubtless it must be admitted that there being a God — the 
Creator of all — supreme over all — a miracle wrought bj 
created agents must be wrought permissivelj. Thej have n:> 
powder but of God, and depend upon Him for the exercise of 
the powers bestowed upon them. But while this is true, it 
appears to be matter of fact that God has bestowed such 
powers, and that He has permitted the exercise of them. We 
are constrained to admit this on the evidence of the Bible 
itself. Its te^timonv is recorded with sutficient plainness, 
and unless we dangerously tamper with the letter of its state- 
ments, we dare not deny the fact. As I know that, in main- 
taining this opinion, I oppose the views of some sincere be- 
lievers in the truth of revelation, I am glad to be able to 
confirm my statements by the high authority of Dr Chalmers. 
He adduces the case of the demoniacal possessions spoken of 
in the New Testament, but the principle is the same as in the 
case I have stated. 

'' It does appear ultra vires on the part of man, to afnrm 
of every miracle that, because a miracle, it must proceed from 
the immediate finger or fiat of God. Is it in the spirit, we 
ask, either of Butler or Bacon, to make this confident aiiirma- 
tion ? What is it that invests us with the mighty intelli- 
gence of knowing either the extent or the limit of those facul- 
ties which belong to the powers and the principalities and the 
higher orders of being that ascend, in upward gradation, be- 
tween us and God ? Does either the experience of our little 
day, but a moment on the high scale of eternity; or the ob- 
servation of our narrow sphere, but an atom in the peopled 
immensity of w^orlds that are around us, — do these entitle us 
to pronounce on the movements that take place in a universal 
economy of things, or to say how the parts are afi^ected, and 
how they are implicated with each other ? All that we have 
ever been led to regard as sound philosophy is utterly at an- 
tipodes with such a presumption as this. It teaches to value 
the information of the senses, and to value the solid informa- 
tions of history. This is the philosophy of facts, and has no 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 24t5 

fellowship with that mere notional philosophy which has no- 
thing but gratuitous imaginations to rest upon. It is of the 
latter and not of the former philosophy, that, when a miracle 
is evolved upon the platform of our visible world, we should 
pronounce on the operation behind the curtain which gave 
birth to it ; or with confidence tell whether it was done by an 
immediate mandate from God, or by the spontaneous act of 
some subordinate but lofty creature stationed somewhere along 
that vast interval which separates man from the Deity. It is 
a matter altogether beyond our sphere, and therefore, to 
every apprehension of ours, it would comport better with the 
modesty of true science, to say in the first instance that God 
must have the power of making invasion on the laws of vi- 
sible nature ; but to say also, in the second instance, that, for 
aught we know, God may have permitted the exercise of a 
like power to the angels or the archangels who are beneath 
him. 

^' But there is another presumption no less revolting to our 
taste, in the advocates of that system to which we now refer. 
Why all this tampering with the plain and obvious literali- 
ties of Scripture ? How is it possible, without giving up the 
authority of the record, to reduce these demoniacal possessions 
to diseases ? On this subject we should value the impression, 
the unsophisticated impression of a plain and simple cottager, 
before the opinion of all the nosologists ; nor can the pompous 
nomenclature of all their demonstrations ever reconcile us to 
such a glaring violation as some have attempted to practise on 
a narrative which tells us of the spirits that held converse 
with the Saviour ; that supplicated His forbearance; that, on 
their part, told how they knew Him, and, on His part, were 
charged to be silent ; and that, when displaced from their old 
receptacles by the word of His power, entered by permission 
into other receptacles where they made demonstration both of 
the power and malignity which belonged to them. These are 
mysteries, no doubt — as every thing is which belongs in part 
to the seen, and in part to the unseen world. But they have 
also come down to us in the light of palpable facts, grounded 
on sensible and historical evidence. And to refuse a fact thus 
authenticated, because of the unexplained or perhaps inexpli- 
cable mysteriousness involved in it, appears very clearly to 



24i6 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

ourselves a transgression both of sound philosophy and of 
sound faith." 

But if it be so, why, it may be asked, speak of the evidence 
from miracles at all ? Why were they performed, if not to 
attest the fact that they who wrought them came from God ? 
Do they not appear as an unnecessary incumberance and 
stumbling block in the record of the Xew Testament. Were 
the miracles of Jesus without an object ? If they had an object, 
what else could it be but the proof of a divine mission ? Does 
not Jesus himself appeal to his works as a sufficient testimony 
that his mission was divine ? There can be no doubt, indeed, 
that miracles are an evidence, and that of a very important 
and influential kind ; but the question how far and in what way 
they are evidences of a divine mission, must be determined, I 
apprehend, on somewhat different principles from those to 
which I have adverted. 

In attempting the solution of it, it is of prime importance 
to notice that the speculation or objection which has given 
rise to it is far from being new ; that in fact it is stated 
almost in express terms in the New Testament itself, as 
adduced by the Jews. They had every disposition to deny 
the divine mission of Jesus — did, in point of fact, deny it, and 
in answer to the miraculous agency he displayed, alleged that 
it was a display of the power of the prince of the devils, and 
not at all divine. They could not dispute the fact of the 
miracles, but believing that other agents than God might per- 
form them, they denied them as proofs of a divine mission, 
and insisted that they were merely proofs of a mission from 
the devil. Let us quote the passage itself, and consider its 
bearings upon the question which we are discussing. Mark 
iii. 22, ^' And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, 
He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he 
out devils. And he called them unto him, and said unto 
them in parables. How can Satan cast out Satan ? And if a 
kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 
And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot 
stand. And if Satan rise up against himself and be divided, 
he cannot stand, but hath an end.'' Such is the way in which 
Jesus disposes of this perplexing question ; and his solution 
is altogether worthy of the wisdom of which he was possessed. 



EVIDENCE FROM MIHACLES. 247 

Wben the scribes suggested Satan as the miracle -Trorking 
agent, he does not say that no being can work a miracle but 
God — that to work a miracle was beyond the limit of Satan's 
power. This would have been the simplest and most direct 
answer ; and one which, had it been true^, was specially needed, 
for it is plain that the scribes believed that Satan possessed 
the power of working miracles. His silence on the compe- 
tency of such an agent is as instructive as the answer he ren- 
ders. What then is the proof that a miracle is of God ? It 
is not the fact that it is a miracle, but it is the character of 
the fact. The fact itself might have been accomplished by 
the agency of Satan ; but Satan could not exert his power for 
such a purpose. The miracle ^^^r se is not a competent proof 
of a divine mission, but the miracle in connection with i' s 
object is. This is clearly the principle involved in the re- 
sponse of Jesus. We accept it as containing the true solution 
of the difficulty. Had the miracles of Jesus been performed 
for a malignant purpose — to sanction acts of cruelty and in- 
justice — had their object been, in the expressive language of 
scripture, to establish the kingdom of Satan, they could have 
afforded no proof that his mission was divine. That proof hiy 
in the fact that there was not only a miracle performed, but 
that the purpose of it was to overthrow and destroy the king- 
dom of Satan. In its essence the argument of Jesus is this ; 
a miracle performed to sanction what is evil, cannot prove a 
divine mission. But a miracle performed to sanction what is 
good does prove it. 

The evidence of miracles thus rests on something anterior. 
Manifestly it presupposes the existence of a God. But it 
presupposes more than this. The character of God must also 
be presumed as known, at least in so far as to understand that 
he would not display his power to sanction what is wrong. 
To make the evidence of miracles available, there must be an 
antecedent natural theology. Miraculous agency when it oc- 
curs, apart from any moral character, would naturally be at- 
tributed to God. The instinctive feeling of every heart would 
suggest, that when the regular operations of nature were in- 
terrupted, the interference was by him who is their author. 
But this supfgestion is not of such force as to overbear the yt t 
deeper conviction, that a miracle to sanction fraud or malig- 



248 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

nit J cannot be of God. The evidence is only complete when 
we have at once the miraculous agency, and the just and bene- 
ficient purpose. 

But in reasoning thus, we are accused of reasoning in a 
circle. It is said, we attempt, first of all, to prove the doctrine 
by the miracle, and then that we attempt to prove the mir- 
acle by the doctrine. We are guilty of no such paltry sophism. 
Our first object is to establish the miracle as a fact. This is 
not done in any sense or to any extent by an appeal to the 
doctrine which the miracle sanctions. We establish the fact 
of the miracle on the basis of indisputable testimony. When 
the fact has been proved, another question arises : by whom 
was the miracle wrought ? — by God^ or by some other agent ? 
That question we do answer by an appeal to the doctrine, but 
only in a limited sense. We do not take it for granted that 
the doctrine is divine — -that it is a revelation. We merely exa- 
mine its moral character, and on the fact that this is good, 
we ground the conclusion that the miracle, the reality of which 
we have proved by testimony, is from God, and consequently 
that the good doctrine sanctioned by such a miracle is not only 
good but divine. 

There is still another matter to which we must give a brief 
and passing attention, before we come to a direct statement of 
the Christian miracles. Christianity is not the only system of 
religion which claims the sanction of miracles, and its op- 
ponents have ever been anxious to shew, or at least to insinu- 
ate, that its miracles must be classed among the numberless 
impostures by which a cunning priesthood have sought to lord 
it over the minds of men. Paganism had its miracles, and 
Popery has them without number in all ages and in all lands. 
Are we then to admit the reality of all alleged miracles ? Or, 
if not, how are we to distinguish between the true and the 
false ? I answer just in the same way as you distinguish be- 
tween the true and the false in any alleged matter of fact. 
Scrutinize and sift the evidence adduced. If that be satis- 
factory, believe the fact ; if it be not, reject it as a falsehood. 
If the fact alleged be miraculous, a greater amount of unsus- 
];icious evidence is reasonably demanded than would be re- 
quired to establish an ordinary matter of fact. The Pagan 
and Popish miracles are alike destitute of suificient proof. 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 249 

The latter indeed can only obtain credit with those who as- 
same the infallibility of the church, and who consequently 
must believe whatever the church asserts. When rigidly 
examined it will be found of all miracles, except the Christian, 
that they are either unsupported by contemporary testimony, 
or that the testimony was not at the time subjected to such 
tests as conclusively to prove its honesty — or that the matters 
of fact alleged are such that the witnesses might have been 
deceived in regard to them. For the Pagan miracles there is 
absolutely no contemporary evidence. They are not related 
by a single eye witness, or by any one on whom the alleged 
miracles were wrought. This is true also of by far the larger 
number of the Popish miracles. Those again which have the 
benefit of contemporary testimony, are either such flagrant 
impostures as the liquefying of the blood of St Januarius, or 
of such a kind that the witnesses are not competent judges of 
the alleged miraculous character of the facts. This is true 
of the wonderful facts related as having occurred at the tomb 
of the Abbe de Paris during last century. The miracles alleged 
were miracles of healing, and it is certain they were believed 
by persons whose honesty and general intelligence there is not 
the slightest reason to doubt. Of the fact that cures were 
eflPected there is no room to doubt. Of the fact that these 
cures were miraculous, there is no competent evidence. They 
were all partial and gradual, and such as might have been ef- 
fected by natural means. Not one of them was instantaneous. 
Most of the parties had been using medicine to effect a cure, 
or their distempers had abated before they resolved to have 
recourse to the saint. The miracles of Jesus admit of no com- 
parison with such as these. They alone are capable of en- 
during the severest scrutiny. Mr Charles Leslie, in his Short 
and Easy Method with the Deists, has adduced four criteria 
of the facts of the Bible, in regard to which he justly says, 
that those facts which can stand their application are demon- 
strably true. 

" The rules are these : 1st, That the matter of fact be such, 
as that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be 
judges of it. 2d, That it be done publicly in the face of the 
world. 3d, That not only public monuments be kept up in 
memory of it, but some outward actions to be performed. 4tli, 



250 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

That such monuments, and such actions or observances be in- 
stituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of 
fact was done. 

" The two first rules make it impossible for any such mat- 
t*^r of fact to be imposed upon men, at the time when such 
matter of fact was said to be done, because every man's eyes 
and senses would contradict it. For example : Suppose any 
man should pretend, that yesterday he divided the Thames, 
in presence of all the people of London, and carried the whole 
city, men, women, and children, over to Southwark, on dry 
land, the water standing like walls on both sides ; I say, it is 
morally impossible that he could persuade the people of Lon- 
don that this was true, when every man, woman, and child 
could contradict him, and say, that this was a notorious false- 
hood, for that they had not seen the Thames so divided, or had 
gone over on dry land. Therefore I take it for granted (and 
I suppose, with the allowance of all the Deists in the world) 
that no such imposition could be put upon men, at the time 
when such public matter of fact was said to be done. 

*' Therefore it only remains that such matter of fact might 
be invented some time after, when the men of that generation, 
wherein the thing was said to be done, are all past and gone, 
and the credulity of after ages might be imposed upon, to be- 
lieve that things were done in former ages which were not. 

*' And for this, the two last rules secure us as much as the 
two first rules, in the former case ; for whenever such a matter 
of fact came to be invented, if not only monuments were said 
to remain of it, but likewise that public actions and observ- 
ances were constantly used ever since the matter of fact was 
said to be done, the deceit must be detected, by no such mo- 
numents appearing, and by the experience of every man, wo- 
man, and child, who must know that no such actions or ob- 
servances were ever used by them. For example : Suppose I 
should now invent a story of such a thing done a thousand 
years ago, I might perhaps get some to believe it ; but if I 
say, that not only such a thing was done, but that, from that 
day to this, every man, at the age of twelve years, had a joint 
of his little finger cut off; and that every man in the nation 
did want a joint of such a finger ; and that this institution was 
said to be part of the matter of fact done so many years ago, 



EYIDEXCE PROM MIRACLES. 251 

and Youclied as a proof and confirmation of it, and as haying 
descended, without interruption, and been constantly prac- 
tised in memory of such matter of fact, all along from the 
time that such matter of fact was done ; I say it is impossible 
I should be believed in such a case, because every one could 
contradict me, as to the mark of cutting off a joint of the 
finger ; and that being part of my original matter of fact, musfe 
demonstrate the whole to be false." 

After shewing the application of these rules to the miracles 
of Moses, he has the following very brief observations on 
those of the Xew Testament : — 

'' I come now to shew, that as in the matters of fact of 
Moses, so, likewise, all these four marks do meet in the mat- 
ters of fact which are recorded in the gospel of our blessed 
Saviour. And my work herein will be the shorter, because all 
that is said before of Moses and his books is every way as ap- 
licable to Christ and his gospel. His works and his mii^acles 
are there said to be done publicly in the face of the world, as 
he argued to his accusers, ' I spake openly to the world, and 
in secret have I said nothing.' John xviii. 20. It is told 
(Acts ii. 41), that three thousand at one time, and (Acts iv. 
4), that above five thousand at another time, were converted 
upon conviction of what themselves had seen, what had been 
done publicly before their eyes, wherein it was impossible to 
have imposed upon them. Therefore, here were the tvro first 
of the rules before mentioned. 

" Then for the two second : Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
were instituted as perpetual memorials of these things ; and 
they were not instituted in after ages, but at the very time 
when these things were said to be done, and have been ob- 
served without interruption in all ages through the whole 
Christian world, down all the way from that time to this, 
And Christ himself did ordain apostles, and other mi- 
nisters of his gospel, to preach and administer the sacra- 
ments, and to govern his Church, and that always, even 
unto the end of the world. Accordingly, they have continued 
by regular succession to this day, and, no doubt, ever shall 
while the earth shall last. So that the Christian clergy aie 
as notorious a matter of fact, as the tribe of Levi among the 
Jews ; and the gospel is as much a law to the Christians, as 



252 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the books of Moses to the Jews. And it being part of the mat- 
ters of fact related in the gospel, that such an order of men 
were appointed bj Christ, and to continue to tbe end of the 
v/orld ; consequently, if the gospel was a fiction, and invented 
(as it must be) in some ages after Christ, then, at that time, 
when it was first invented, there could be no such order of 
clergy as derived themselves from the institution of Christ, 
which must give the lie to the gospel, and demonstrate the 
whole to be false. And the matters of fact of Christ being 
proved to be true, no otherwise than as there was at that 
time, (whenever the Deists will suppose the gospel to be 
forged) not only public sacraments of Christ's institution, but 
an order of clergy, likewise of his appointment, to administer 
them ; and it being impossible there could be any such things 
before they were invented, it is as impossible that they should 
be received when invented. And, therefore, by what is said 
above, it was as impossible to have imposed upon mankind in 
this matter, by inventing of it in after ages, as at the time 
when those things were said to be done." 

It is unnecessary after what has been stated already, to say 
any thing of the amount and weight of the evidence by which 
the Christian miracles are established as matters of fact. We 
refer to our former lecture for a statement of the character of 
that evidence. It is impossible to resist its overwhelming 
force, or to question its truthfulness except on principles 
which would render the proof of any fact an impossibility. 
Neither from the nature of these miracles is it possible to 
infer that the witnesses of them were deceived. They stand 
distinguished from all pretended miracles by their publicity, 
their number, their variety, and the dignity and moral worth 
of the design for which they were wrought. 

Jesus Christ did not come before the world and say that he 
had performed miracles. They wxre wrought in the face of 
day in the presence of immense multitudes of people, to the 
conviction of his deadly enemies, who could not deny the facts 
at a time when men wanted neither the inclination nor the 
power to brand them as impostures. They were witnessed by 
thousands who would have rejoiced had they been able to de- 
tect them as impostures, and who subjected them to the most 
scrutinizing search with such a design. The facts and their 



EVIDENCE FROM MIRACLES. 253 

iniraculous character were admitted alike by Jews and Chris- 
tians, by pagans and by iniidel pMlosopbers. 

The number of Christ's miracles was very great. Those 
of which a minute account is given am.ount to about fifty, but 
we are told that in various parts of Judea and Galilee great 
multitudes, affected with various diseases, flocked to Jesus, and 
that he healed them all. Every new miracle increased the 
chances of detection in the case of imposture, and yet such a 
thing was never alleged of any of them. In every place over 
the land there were the evidences of Christ's miraculous 
agency — lame men restored — lepers healed — blind men re- 
stored to sight — thousands miraculously fed at once — demo- 
niacs in their sound mind — dead men restored to life again — 
these subjects of his miracles were visible everywhere, and 
were witnesses to those who had not seen the miracle per- 
formed. 

The variety of Christ's miracles is no less astonishing than 
their number, and no less fitted to convince the gain say er. 
Xot one disease only but all are subject to his power, and dis- 
appear at his word or touch — death hears his voice and ren- 
ders up its victims — he who was born blind receives sight — 
the withered arm is made strong — the bowed down are made 
straight — the palsy-shaken, robust — the dreadful leprosy, is 
rebuked and cleansed — the winds and waves hear his command 
and obey him — he creates bread for hungry thousands. Could 
men be cheated into a belief of all these things, if all of them 
were false ? 

It can scarcely be necessary to refer to particular instances 
to shew how impossible any deception was. Was it possible 
to cheat the five thousand men who were fed in the wilder- 
ness, who ate and were satisfied, into the belief that all this 
was a mere delusion, and to convince them that they had not 
really partaken of food; and that {he fragments which were 
gathered up did not greatly exceed the orioinal amount of 
their provision ? The Pharisees tried to peisuade the man who 
had been born blind, that Christ could not work a miracle. 
His answer is substantially the answer vrhich such incredulity 
in that age must always have encountered, '' Whether this man 
be a sinner or no I cannot tell ; but this I know, that whereaa 
I was blind now I see.'' Could the multitude be deceived 



25i EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in the fact that Lazarus was dead — that he had been dead for 
four days — and that they saw him at the command of Jesus 
walk forth from the tomb restored to life again ? Was there 
any deception possible in the fact of Christ's resurrection ? 
He had foretold it. Those who put him to death knew the pre- 
diction, and used every possible means to prevent its accom- 
plishment, and to prevent an imposition on the public. Yet the 
fact was accomplished. The soldiers watched the tomb, but 
could not hinder it. They were bribed to say they had 
slept, and that the body had been stolen. But their false wit- 
ness could serve no end. For Christ was not only said to be 
risen, but was seen alive by many witnesses — at various times 
— in various places. Mary Magdalene sees him in the garden 
— the women returning in sorrow from the empty grave, see 
and converse with him — he appears to Peter alone — the two 
disciples going to Emmaus hold with him a protracted inter- 
course — the Apostles, except Thomas, see him at Jerusalem — 
after eight days, the whole of them meet him, and are sa- 
tisfied that it is truly he — -on the shores of the lake of Tiberias, 
he partakes of food with the disciples — after that he is seen of 
^\e hundred at once, and all the Apostles finally see him as- 
cend from Mount Olivet to Heaven. In the assertion of this 
matter of fact, and because they did assert it, these men 
encountered contempt — the most degrading punishments — 
scourging, imprisonment, death itself. They must have 
known whether it was a fact or no ; in the circumstances they 
could not allege it as such if they had not believed it. Such 
evidence on any other matter of fact would be irresistible ; and 
looking to the singularly full attestation which is thereby af- 
forded to the divinity of the revelation contained in the Bible, 
we can only account for the fact of its being impugned and 
disbelieved on the ground stated in the Scriptures themselves. 
*' But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in 
whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them 
that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, 
who is the image of God, should shine unto them.'' 



( -55 ) 



I EGTUEE XII. 

OxN THE EVIDENCE EBOM PEOPHECY; 

AND 

ESPECIALLY FROM THE FULFILME>-T OF THE PEOPHECIES CONCEBNIXG 

CHRIST, THE DISPERSION AND EXISTENCE OF THE JE"Vrs IN A 

SEPARATE STATE, THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 

BY THE ROMANS, AND ANTICHRIST. 

BY THE EEV. Vr. WILSON'. 



Prophecy ranks alongside of miracles as an evidence for 
the divine authority of the Scriptures. By David Hume it is 
classed with miracles, and therefore declared to be incredible. 
We accept the classification, but refuse to be guided by his 
incredulity. The evidence of prophecy, indeed, is in one 
respect not only more striking than that derived from miracles, 
but in its very nature affords a refutation of Hume's argument. 
To verify miracles v>-e have nothing more than the honest tes- 
timony of those who witnessed them, a,n evidence, the im.pres- 
siveness of which, however unreasonably, becomes weal^er the 
farther we recede from the date of their performance. The 
evidence of prophecy, on the other hand, in this respect con- 
stitutes a direct counterpart. As its fulfilments multiply in 
the progress of time, we are provided with an ever-increasing 
proof of the divine authority of the Scriptures, — a proof, 
moreover, which does not depend on the testimony of others, 
but is presented to our own observation. Unless, therefore, 
we are prepared to deny the evidence of our senses, unless a 
miracle seen and scrutinized by ourselves is incapable of being 
believed, we cannot refuse our assent to the truth of Chris- 
tianity. 



256 . EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Miracles are exercises of divine power. Prophecy is a mi- 
racle of knowledge. Ultimately, however, it involves also the 
exercise of power. For absolute foreknowledge of events, the 
germs of which are not descernible by the most subtle intel- 
ligence, is impossible save to Him who has power to verify his 
own prediction. To believe the evidence of prophecy, there- 
fore, is to believe in an eternal God, who not only knows the 
end from the beginning, but who upholds and governs all 
things according to the counsel of his will, and who so orders 
and arranges the events which occur in the world, that they 
shall fall out as he has declared they will. A declaration 
that a certain event will happen, followed up by the fulfil- 
ment of it, is an evidence not only of superhuman knowledge, 
but that he who uttered the prediction is the universal go- 
vernor, who not only foresees but pre-arranges all things so 
that they shall happen as he has determined. 

There are two hypotheses, by the establishment of either of 
which the evidence of prophecy will be completely neutralised ; 
the one that the prophecy was written after the event, the 
other that it is a fortunate guess. Both of these hypotheses 
have been stated and insisted on by unbelievers with consi- 
derable ingenuity, but with little probability. 

To establish the first it is necessary to refute all that evi- 
dence by which the genuineness of the Scriptures is esta- 
blished. If the Bible was written at the times and by the 
authors which it professes to be, the prophecies are not only 
antecedent to the events, but in some instances an interval of 
thousands of years occur between the prediction and its ac- 
complishment. It would divert us from our proper theme to 
enter here into a detailed examination of those proofs by 
which the genuineness of the Scriptures is conclusively de- 
monstrated. Confessedly the most ancient of them (the five 
books of Moses) are capable, even on the question of their 
genuineness, to stand the test of Mr Leslie's Criteria. He 
thus states the argument : — 

" The utmost therefore that even a suppose can stretch to, 
is, that these books were written in some age after ^Moses, and 
put out in his name. 

*' And to this I say, that if it was so, it was impossible that 
those books should have been received as the books of Mose:^, 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 257 

in tliat age wherein they may have been supposed to have 
been first invented. Why ? Because they speak of them- 
selves as delivered by Moses, and kept in the ark from his 
time — * And it came to pass when Moses had made an end of 
writing the words of this law in a book, until they were 
finished, that Moses commanded the Levites who bare the ark 
of the covenant of the Lord, saying, take this book of the law, 
and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord 
your God, that it may be there for a witness aigainst thee,' 
Deut. xxxi. 24, 25, 26. And there was a copy of this book 
to be left likewise with the king — ' And it shall be, when he 
sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom^ chat he shall write 
him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before 
the priests the Levites ; and it shall be with him, and he shall 
read therein all the days of his life ; that he may learn to fear 
the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these 
statutes to do them,' Deut. xvii. 18, 19. 

'^Here, then, you see that this book of the law speaks of 
itself, not only as a history or relation of what things were 
then done, but as the standing and municipal law and statutes 
of the nation of the Jews, binding the king as well as the 
people. 

" Now, in whatever age after Moses you will suppose this 
book to have been forged, it was impossible it could have been 
received as truth, because it was not then to be found either 
in the ark, or with the king, or any where else ; for, when 
first invented, every body must have known that they never 
heard of it before. 

" And therefore, they could less believe it to be the book of 
their statutes, and the standing law of the land, which they 
had all along received, and by which they had been governed. 

'' Could any man, now, at this day, invent a book of sta- 
tutes or acts of parliament, for England, and make it pass 
upon the nation as the only book of statutes that ever they had 
known ? As impossible was it for the books of Moses (if they 
were invented in any age after Moses) to have been received 
for what they declare themselves to be, namely, the statutes 
and municipal law of the nation of the Jews ; and to have per- 
suaded the Jews that they had owned and acknowledged these 
books all along from the days of Moses to that day in which 

XO. XVII. 



253 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

they were first invented ; that is, that they had owned them 
before they had ever so much as heard of them. Nay, more, 
the whole nation must, in an instant, forget their former laws 
and government, if they could receive these books as being 
their former laws ; and they could not otherwise receive them, 
because they vouched themselves so to be. Let me ask the 
deists but one short question. Was there ever a book of 
sham-laws, which were not the laws of the nation, palmed 
upon any people since the world began ? If not, with what 
face can they say this of the book of laws of the Jews ? Why 
v/ill they say that of them which they confess impossible in any 
nation, or among any people ? 

•*But they must be yet more unreasonable; for the books 
of Moses have a farther demonstration of their truth than 
even other law-books have ; for they not only contain the 
laws, but give an historical account of their institution, and 
the practice of them from that time ; as of the Passover in 
memory of the death of the first-born in Egypt ; and that the 
same day, all the first-born of Israel, both of man and 
beast were, by a perpetual law, dedicated to God, and the 
Levites taken for all the first-born of the children of Israel ; 
that Aaron's rod, which budded, was kept in the ark in 
memory of the rebellion, and wonderful destruction ofKorah, 
Dathan and Abiram, and for the confirmation of the priest- 
hood to the tribe of Levi ; as likewise the pot of manna in 
memory of their having been fed with it forty years in the 
wilderness ; that the brazen serpent was kept (which remained 
to the days of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii. 4,) in memory of that 
wonderful deliverance, by only looking upon it, from the bit- 
ing of the fiery serpents. Num. xxi. 9 ; the feast of Pentecost 
in memory of the dreadful appearance of God upon Mount 
Horeb, &c. 

" And besides these remembrances of particular actions and 
occurrences there were other solemn institutions in memory of 
their deliverance out of Egypt, in the general, which included 
all the particulars, as of the Sabbath, Deut. v. 15, their daily 
sacrifices and yearly expiation, their new moons, and several 
feasts and fasts ; so that there were yearly, monthly, weekly, 
daily remembrances and recognitions of these things. 

" And not only so, but the books of the same Moses tell us, 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 250 

that a particular tribe (of Levi) was appointed and con- 
secrated by God as Ms priests ; by whose hands, and none 
other, the sacrifices of the people were to be offered, and these 
solemn institutions to be celebrated ; that it was death for 
any other to approach the altar ; that their high priest wore 
a glorious mitre and magnificent robes, of God's own contriv- 
ance, with a miraculous Urim and Thammim in his breast- 
plate, whence the divine responses were given ; that at his 
word the king and all the people were to go out and to come 
in ; that these Levites were likewise the chief judges even in 
all civil causes, and that it was death to resist their sentence. 
Now, whenever it can be supposed that these books of Moses 
were forged in some age after Moses, it is impossible they 
could have been received as true, unless the forgers could have 
made the whole nation believe that they had received these 
books from their fathers, had been instructed in them when 
they were children, and had taught them to their children ; 
moreover, that they had all been circumcised, and did circum- 
cise their children, in pursuance of what was commanded in 
these books ; that they had observed the yearly passover, the 
weekly Sabbath, the new moons, and all the several feasts, 
fasts, and ceremonies, commanded in these books ; that they 
had never eaten any swine's flesh, or other meats prohibited 
in these books ; that they had a magnificent tabernacle, with 
a visible priesthood to administer in it, which was confined to 
the tribe of Levi, over whom was placed a glorious high priest 
clothed with great and mighty prerogatives, whose death only 
could deliver those that were fled to the cities of refuge ; and that 
these priests were their ordinary judges even in civil matters. 
I say was it possible to have persuaded a whole nation of men 
that they had known and practised all these things if they 
had not done it ? or, secondly, to have received a book for 
truth, which said they had practised them, and appealed to 
that practice ? So that here are the third and fourth of the 
marks above mentioned," 

But after what w^a.s stated in our former lectures, it is need- 
less to enter more at large into the examination of a hypothe- 
sis so untenable, which is unsupported by any probability, and 
which could only have been adduced from an invincible reluc- 
tance to admit the facts which are recorded in the Bible. 



260 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The other hypothesis, which, if true, would be fatal to the 
claims of prophecy as an evidence, is that it is merely a for- 
tunate guess. This theory will be most successfully refuted 
by an examination of the prophecies themselves. Were the 
prophecies of the Bible merely declarations that a parti- 
cular event should happen, followed up by the actual occur- 
rence of the event, they might be got rid of in this way. If 
I should predict that the sun will be shining cloudless on this 
day twelvemonths, my prediction might be verified by the 
event. The chances are just equal that it will or that it will 
not. And supposing it verified it would amount to nothing 
more than a guess. But supposing I should not only predict 
the aspect of the sky for one day, but for every day in the 
year, and that in every instance my prediction was verified, it 
could no longer be construed in this way. The chances are 
incalculably large against such a verification. But even this 
does not fully represent the strength of the case as it is found 
in the Scripture prophecy. As stated by Dr Keith, whose 
work on the evidence of fulfilled prophecy I commend to your 
most earnest attention, and of whose researches I shall most 
freely and largely avail myself in this lecture — 

" The doctrine of chances, or calculation of probabilities, 
has been reduced into a science, and is now in various ways 
of great practical use, and securely acted upon in the affairs 
of life. But it is altogether impossible that short-sighted 
man could select, from the infinite multitude of the possible 
contingencies of distant ages, any one of such particular facts 
as abound in the prophecies ; and it is manifest that, upon 
the principle of probabilities, the chance would be incalculable 
against the success of the attempt, even in a single instance. 
Each accomplished prediction is a miracle. But the advocate 
for Christianity may safely concede much, and reduce his 
data to the lowest terms. And if the unbeliever reckon not 
his own cause utterly hopeless, and ^ by no means fitted to 
endure the trial of reason,' he must grant that there was as 
great a probability that ectch prediction would not as that it 
would have been fulfilled ; or that the probabilities were 
equal for and against the occurrence of each predicted event. 
The Christian may fearlessly descend to meet him even on this 
very low ground. And without enumerating all the particu- 



E'v^IDEXCE FROM PROPHECY. 26 1 

lars included in the volume of prophecy respecting the life, 
and character^ and death of Christ, — the nature and extent 
of Christianity, &c., — the destruction of Jerusalem, — the fate 
of the Jews in every age and nation, — the existing state of 
Judea, of Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia. Babylon, Tyre, 
Egypt, the Arabs, &;c., — the Church of Rome, and the pro- 
phetic history which extends throughout two thousand three 
hundred years ; may it not be assumed (though fewer would 
suffice, and though incontestible evidence has been adduced to 
prove more than double the number,) that a hundred different 
particulars have been foretold and fulfilled ? What, then, 
even upon these data, is the chance, on a calculation of pro- 
babilities, that all of them would have proved true — the 
chance diminishing one-half for every number ; or what, in 
other words, is the hundredth power of two to unity ? Such 
is the desperate hazard to which the unbeliever would trust, 
that even from these premises, it is math ematic all y demon- 
strable that the number of chances is far greater against him 
than the number of drops in the ocean, although the whole 
world were one globe of water. Let the chance at least be 
counted before it be confided in. But who would risk a single 
mite against the utmost possible gain, at the stake on which 
unbelievers here recklessly put to certain peril the interests 
of eternity ?" 

Departing from these general considerations, let me direct 
your attention more minutely to those topics indicated in the 
title of my lecture. And first, let us look to the predictions 
about Jesus Christ and compare these with their fulfilments. 
In this case we find both the prophecy and the fulfilment in 
the same volume. The predictions are contained in the Old 
Testament ; their fulfilments are recorded in the New Tes- 
tament. In order to prove that they are really predictions, 
it is only necessary to bear in mind that the Old Testament 
is not an invention of Christians, and that it existed be- 
fore the time of Jesus. Of both of these facts the Jews may 
be held as sufficient witnesses. Their hostility now and always 
to the Christians precludes the possibility of their having re- 
ceived as a revelation a book invented by Christians ; and 
their disbelief of Christ is conclusive proof that they would 
not, after the event, write a book which so abundantly verifies 



262 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



his claim to "be the Messiah. That the vvhole evidence maj 
be more manifest to the eye, we shall range the prophecy and 
its fulfilment in opposite columns. 



PROPHECY* 



FULFILMENT. 



1. TJiat a Messiah should come. 



Gen. iii. 15. He (the seed of the 
woman) shall bruise thy head, and 
thou shalt bruise his heel. 



Gal. iv. 4. When the fulness of 
time was come, God sent forth his 
Son, made of a woman (4000 years 
after the prophecy.) — Rom. xvi. 20. 
The God of peace shall bruise 
Satan (that old serpent, Eev. xii. 
9,) under your feet shortly. — 1 John 
iii. 8. The Son of God was mani- 
fested that he might destroy th» 
works of the devil. 

2. The nature of the Messiah, God and man. 

7. Thou art my Son, Heb. i. 8. Unto the Son he saith, 
"Thy throne, God, is for ever 
and ever." Compaie Matt. xxii. 
42-45,; 1 Cor. xv. 25.; Heb. i. 13. 
—Matt. i. 23. They shall call his 
name Emmanuel, that is, God ^Yith 
us. — John i. 1, 14. The Word was 
with God, and the Word was God. 
The Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among ns. — Eom. ix. 5. Of 
whom (the fathers) as concerning 
the flesh Christ came, who is God 
over all, blessed for ever. See also 
Col. ii. 9.; 1 John v. 20. 

3. From whom descended. 



Psal. ii. 
this day have 1 begotten thee. — 
Psal. ex. 1. The Lord said unto 
my Lord.— Isa. ix. 6. The mighty 
God, the everlasting Father. — Mic. 
V. 2. Whose goings forth have been 
from of old, from everlastins'. 



From the first woman, Gen. iii. 
15. 

From Abraham and his descend- 
ants (Gen. xii. 3; xviii. 18) ; viz. 
Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 4) ; Jacoh (Gen. 
cxviii. 14) ; Judah (Gen. xlix. 10) ; 
Jesse (Isa. xa. 1); David (Psal. 
xxxxii. 11, Ixxxix. 4, 27; Isa. ix. 7 ; 
Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15.) 



Gal. iv. 4. "When the fulness of 
time wa^ come, God sent forth his 
Son, made of a woman. 

Acts iii. 25. The covenant which 
God made with our fathers, saying 
unto Ahraluim, " And in thy seed 
shall all the nations of the earth be 
blessed." (See Matt: i. 1.)— Heb, 
vii. 14. It is evident that our Lord 
sprang out of Judah. — Piom. xv. 12, 
IsaieJi saith there shall be a root of 
Jesse. — John vii. 42. Hath not the 
Scriptures said, that Christ cometh 
of the seed of David i See also 
Acts ii. 30, xiii. 23 : Luke i. 32. 

4. When he should come. 

Gen. xlix. 10. The .sceptre shall When the Messiah came, the 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 



263 



PROPHECY. 

10^ depart from Judah, nor a law- 
giver from between liis feet, U7itil 
Sbiloh come. — The Messiah was to 
come at a time of nearly universal 
peace, and when there was a general 
expectation of him ; and while the 
second temple was standing seventy 
weeks (of years, i.e. 490 years) after 
the rebuilding of Jerusalem. See 
Hag. ii. 6-9.; Dan. ix. 24, 25.; 
Mai. iii. 1. 



6. Of whom he 

Isa. vii. 14. Behold a Virgin 
shall conceive and bring forth a Son. 
— Jer. xxxi. 22. The Lord hath 
created a new thing on the eai'th ; a 
woman shall compass a man. (X.B. 
Ihe ancient Jews applied this pro- 
phecy to the Messiah, whence it 
follows that the later inteiyretations 
to the contrary are only to avoid the 
truth which we profess] viz. That 
Jesus was born of a virgin, and 
therefore is The Christ or Mes- 
siah.— Bp. Pearson on the Creed, 
Art. iii. p. 171, edit. 1715, folio. 



FUL7ILMENT. 

sceptre hud departed from Judah ; for 
the Jews, though governed by their 
own rulers and magistrates, yet were 
subject to the paramount authority of 
the Roman emperors ; as was evinced 
by theii' being subject to the enrol- 
ment of Augustus, paying tribute to 
Caesar, and not having the power of 
life and death. Compai-e Luke ii. 
1,3-5; Matt. xxii. 20, 2L; and the 
parallel passages ; and John xviii. 
3L — WTien Jesus Christ came into 
the world, the Roman wars were 
termhiated, the temple of Janus was 
shut, and peace reigned throughout 
the Roman empke ; and all nations, 
both Jews and Gentiles, were expect- 
ing the coming of some extraordi- 
nary person. See Matt. ii. 1-10 ; 
Mai'k XV. 43 ; Luke ii. 25, 3S. ; and 
John i. 19-45, for the expectation of 
the Jews. The two Roman histo- 
rians, Suetonius and Tacitus, con- 
firm the fulfilment of the prediction 
as to the expectation of the Gentiles. 

was to be born. 

Matt. i. 24, 25. Joseph took his 
wife and knew her not, till she had 
brought forth her first-bom son. 
Compare Luke i. 26-85. Matt. i. 
22, 23. All this was done, that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken 
of the Lord by the Prophet, saying, 
" Behold a virgin shall be with 
child, and shall bring forth a son." 



6. In what place he was to be born. 



Mic. V. 3. Thou Bethlehem Eph- 
ratah, though thou be little among 
the thousands of Judah ; yet out of 
ihee shall he come forth unto me 
that is to be the ruler in Israel. 



Luke ii. 4-6. All went to be taxed 
(or enrolled), every one into his 
own city. And Joseph also went 
up from Galilee, with Mary, his es- 
poused wife, unto Bethlehem ; and 
while they were there she brought 
forth her Jirst-bom sou. Compare 
also Luke ii. 10, 11, IG, and Matt, 
ii. 1,4-6, 8, 11; John vii. 42. 



264 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



PROPHECY. 



FULFILMENT. 



7. That the Messiah ivas to he a prophet. 



Deut. xviii. 15, 18. T will raise 
them up a Prophet from among their 
brethren, like unto thee. 



John iv. 19. The woman saitis 
unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou 
art a Prophet. — John ix. 17. He is 
a Prophet.— Matt. xxi. 46. They 
took him for a Prophet.— Md^xk vi. 
15. It is a Prophet, or as one of the 
Prophets. — Luke vii. 16. A great 
Prophet is risen up among us. — 
John vi. 14. This is of a truth that 
Prophet, which should come into 
the world. — John vii. 40. Of a tnith 
this is the Prophet. — Luke xxiv. 
19. Jesus of Nazareth, which was a 
Prophet, mighty in deed and word 
before God and all the people. — 
Matt. xxi. 11. This is Jesus the 
Prophet, of Nazareth of Galilee. 

8. Where he should preach. 



Isa. ix. 1,2. In Galilee of the na- 
tions, the people that walked in 
darkness have seen a great light. 



Matt. iv. 12, 17. Now when Jesus 
heard that John was cast into 
prison, he departed into Galilee. 
From that time Jesus began to 
preach and to say. Repent, for the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand. 

9. That he should work miracles. 



Isa. XXXV. 5, 6. Then the eyes of 
the blind shall be opened, and the 
ears of the deaf shall be unstopped ; 
then shall the lame man leap as an 
hart, and the tongue of the dumb 
sing. — Isa. xlii. 7; To open the 
blind eyes. — Isa. xxxii. 3. The eyes 
of them that see shall not bedim; 
and the ears of them that hear shall 
hearken. — Isa. xxix. 18. The deaf 
shall hear the words of the book ; 
and the eyes of the blind shall see 
out of obscurity and darkness. 



Matt. xi. 4, 5. Jesus said, " Go, 
and show John those things which 
ye do hear and see : the blind receive 
their sight, and the lame walk ; the 
lepers are cleansed, and the deaf 
hear, the dead are raised up.— Luke 
vii. 21. In the same hour, he cured 
many of their infirmities and plagues, 
and of enl spirits ; and unto many 
that were blind, he gave sight. — 
Matt. iv. 23, 24. Jesus went about 
all Galilee... healing all manner 
of sickness and all manner of 
disease among the people . . .They 
brought unto him all sick people 
that were taken with divers diseases 
and torments, and those which were 
possessed with devils, and those 
which were lunatic, and those which 
had the palsy, and he healed them. 
—Matt. XV. 30, 31. And great mul- 
titudes came unto him, having with 
them those that were lame, blind, 
dumb, maimed, and many others ; 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 



265 



PROPHECY. FULFILMENT. 

and cast them down at Jesiis's feet, 
and he healed them. Insomuch 
that the multitude wondered, when 
they saw the dumb to speak, the 
maimed to be whole, the lame to 
walk, and the hlind to see.— Acts ii. 
22. Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- 
proved of God among you by mira- 
cles and wonders and signs ; which 
God did by him in the midst of you, 
as ye know. 

10. The condition in which he should he lorn and live. 

Is. liii. 3. There is no beauty that Luke ix. 58. The Son of Man 
we should desire him, he is despised hath not where to lay his head, 
and rejected of men, a man of sor- 2 Cor. viii. 9. For your sakes he 
row' and acquainted with grief, and became poor, 
we hid as it were our faces from 
him: he was despised and we es- 
teemed him not. 

11. The manner of his entry to Jerusalem, 



Zech, ix. 9. Rejoice greatly, 
daughter of Jerusalem, behold, thy 
King Cometh unto thee ; he is just, 
and having salvation ; lowly, and 
riding upon an ass, even upon a colt 
the foal of an ass. 



Matt. xxi. 7-10. The disciples... 
brought the ass and the colt, and put 
on them their clothes, and set him 
(Jesus) thereon (that is, upon the 
clothes.) And gi-eat multitudes 
spread their garments, &c., &c. — 
Matt. xxi. 4, 5. All this teas done, 
that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell 
ye the daugher of Sion, " Behold, thy 
king cometh," &c. &c. 

12. That he should he betrayed by a friend— the price of the treachery, and 
the use to which it should be applied. 



Ps. xli. 9. Yea, mine own familiar 
friend in whom I trusted, which 
did eat of my bread, hath lifted up 
his heel against me. 



Zech. xi. 12. So they weighed for 
my price thirty pieces of silver. 



Zech. xi. 13. And the Lord said 
unto me, cast it unto the potter ; a 
goodly price that I was prized at of 
ibem. And I took the thirty pieces 



Luke xxii. 3, 4. Then Satan en- 
tered into Judas, being one of the 
twelve, and he went bis way and 
communed with the chief priests 
how he might betray him unto 
them. 

Matth. xxvi. 14. And Judas went 
unto the chief priests, and said 
unto them, what will ye give me and 
I will deliver him unto you ? And 
they covenanted with him for thirty 
pieces. 

Matth. xxvii. 3-8. Then Judas, 
who had betrayed him, brought 
again the thirty, pieces of silver, 
saying, I have sinned in that I 



266 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAN ItY. 



PROPHKCY. 



of silver and cast them to the potter 
in the house of the Lord. 



FULFILMENT. 

have betrayed innocent blood, and 
he cast down the pieces of silver in 
the temple, and depai'ted and went 
and hanged himself. And the chief 
priests took the silver, and they 
said, it is not lawful to put it into 
the treasury, because it is the price 
of blood. And they took counsel 
and bought with them the Potter's 
Field to bury strangers in. 



13. The circumstances and manner of his death. 



Psal. xxii. 16, 17,— For dogs (that 
is, the Heathens, whom the Jews 
called dogs,) have compassed me; 
the assembly of the wicked have in- 
closed me ; they pierced my hands 
and my feet. I may tell all my 
bones ; they look and stare upon me. 
— Isa. 1. 6. I gave my hack to the 
smiters, and my cheeks to them that 
plucked off the hair. I hid not my 
face from shame and spitting.— Isa. 
liii. 5. 8. He was wounded for our 
transgressions; he was bruised for 
our iniquities ; by his stripes we are 
healed. He was cut off out of the 
land of the living : for the trans- 
gression of my people was he stricken. 
— Isa. liii. 12. And be bare the sin 
o{ma)iy. 

Psal. xxii. 12, 13. 7, 8. Many buUs 
have compassed me ; strong bulls of 
Bashan— (that is, the wicked and 
furious Jews, who like the beasts 
fattened on the fertile plains of Ba- 
shan, "waxed fat and kicked;" — 
became proud and rebellious) — have 
beset me round. They gaped upon 
me with their mouths as a ravening 
and roaring lion. All they that see 
me, laugh me to scorn : they shoot 
out the lip, saying. He trusted in 
God that he ivoiild deliver him : let 
him deliver him, seeing he delighted 
in him. 



Psal. Ixix. 21. They gave me also 
gall for my meat, and in my thirst 
they gave me vinegai' to drink. — 



John xix. 1, 2. Then Pilate took 
Jesus and scourged him. And the 
soldiers platted a crown of thorns,^- 
and they smote him with the palms 
of their hands. — Matt, xxvii. 30; 
Mark xv. 19. And they did sj)it upon 
him, — and smote him on the head. — 
Mark xv. 25. And they crucified 
him.~l Pet. ii. 23, 24. Who, when 
he was reviled, reviled not again ; 
when he suffered, he threatened not. 
Who bare our sins in his own body 
on the tree (the cross.) 



Matt, xxvii. 39, 41, 42. ; Mark xv. 
31,32; Luke xxiii. 35, 36. And 
they that passed by, reviled him, 
wagging their heads. Likewise also 
the chief priests, and the rulers also 
with them, derided, and mocking, 
said among themselves, with the 
scribes and elders, " He saved 
others, himself he cannot save; if 
he be the Christ, the chosen of God, 
let him now come down from the 
cross, and save himself, that we may 
see, and we will beheve him. Ht 
trusted in God, let him deliver him 
now if he will have him." And the 
soldiers also mocked him, — saying, 
"If thou be the king of the Jews, 
save thyself." 

John xix. 29. ; Matt, xxvii. 48 ; 
Mark xv. 36, And they filled a 
sponge with vinegar, and put it upon 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 



267 



PKOPHECY. 

Psal. xxii. 18. They part my gar- 
ments among them, and cast lots 
upon my vesture. 



Psal. xxiv. 20. He keepeth all his 
bones ; not one of tbem is broken . — 
Zech. xii. 10. And they shall look 
apon me whom they have pierced. 



Isa. liii. 9. And he made his grave 
with the wicked, and with the rich 
in his death. 



14. Thai he should rise from 
Psal. xvi. 9. My flesh also shall 
rest in hope. For thou wilt not 
leave my soul in hell (the separate 
state of departed spirits), neither 
wilt tbou suffer thine holy one to 
see corruption.— Isa. hi. 10. When 
thou shalt make his soul an offering 
for sin, — he shall prolong his days. 
—Psal. Ixviii. 18. Thou hast as- 
cended up on high; thou hast led 
captivity captive ; thou has received 
gifts for men, that the Lord God 
might dwell among tbem. 



FULFILMENT. 

hyssop, and put it to his mouth. — 
John xix. 23, 24. And tbe soldiers, 
when they had crucified Jesus, took 
his garments, and made four parts, 
to every soldier a part ; and also his 
coat; now the coat was v/ithout 
seam. They said, therefore, "Let 
us not rend it but cast lots whose it 
shall be." 

John xix. 32-34. Then came the 
soldiers and brake the legs of the 
first and of the other which was cru- 
cified with him ; but when they came 
to Jesus, and saw that he was dead 
already, they brake not his legs. But 
one of the soldiers with a spear 
pierced his side, and forthwith there 
came out blood and water. 

Matt, xxvii. 38, 57-60. Then were 
there two thieves crucified with him. 
There came a rich man of Arima- 
thea named Joseph, and begged the 
body of Jesus ; and he wrapped it in 
a clean linen cloth and laid it in his 
own new tomb. 

the grave and ascend to heaven. 

Acts ii. 31. (David) spake before 
of the resurrection of Christ, that 
his soul was not left in hell (Hades, 
or the sepai-ate state) ; neither did 
his flesh see corruption. See also 
Acts xiii. 35. — Matth. xxviii. 5, 6. 
The angels said unto the woman, 
" He is not here, for he is risen, as 
he said." See Luke xxiv. 5, 6.— 1 
Cor. XV. 4. He rose again the third 
day, according to the Scriptures. — 
Actsi. 3. He showed himself alive, 
after his passion, by many infallible 
proofs. — Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxiv. 
51 ; Acts i. 9. So then, after the 
Lord had spoken to them, while h« 
was blessing them, and while they 
beheld, he was parted from them, 
SLiid cai'ried up into heaven, and sat 
at the right hand of God. Compare 
alsol Pet. iii. 22; I Tim. iii. 16 ; 
Heb.vi.20. 



Besides these express predictions, so numerous, so minute, 
and so unmistakeablj clear, we might also, were it necessarj, 



268 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

refer to the types of the Messiah, of which the Old Testament is 
full, and which may justly be classed as prophecies of his life, 
and offices, and death. Into this inviting field, however, our 
limits do not permit us to enter. 

Despairing of being able to evade the force of that evi- 
dence w^hich we have adduced in the fulfilment of the predic- 
tions concerning Christ, unbelievers have had recourse to an- 
other theory, the examination of which need not occupy us 
long. Looking to the fact that the prophecies are so clear, 
and their statements so well defined, was it not easy, they 
ask, for any one to assume and act out the character ? All 
that is needed is that one should know the prediction and then 
act accordingly. 

Were this theory tenable, it would indeed effectually nulli- 
fy the evidence derivable from these prophecies. But is it 
tenable ? Was it possible for any man designedly to accom- 
plish these prophecies ? Let us look to their character, and 
we shall find that by far the greater number of them were not 
and could not be accomplished by Christ ? He was the subject 
of them, and not the agent in their accomplishment. In ful- 
filling the prediction regarding the place of his birth, neither 
he nor his parents were conscious and willing agents. The 
decree by which it was verified issued from the throne of the 
Caesars. And it is a very emphatic testimony both of the 
verity of the Christian religion, and of the fact that the Most 
High ruleth among the kingdoms of men, that in order to 
bring about the accomplishment of the prophecy that Jesus 
should be born in Bethlehem, the Emperor of the Romans 
should have been made the unconscious instrument, and that 
he should have issued his decree for the census at the very 
time it w^as needed for this end. The most striking, specific, 
and clear predictions regarding Christ do not relate to "what 
he should do, but to what he should endure. Did he inten- 
tionally induce Judas to betray him. Did he by preconcert 
determine the amount which the priests paid for the treachery ? 
Did he determine what they should do with the money when 
it was returned? Did he concert with the Jews and the 
Homan governor, that he should be scourged, spit upon, buf- 
fetted? Did he suggest the words of mockery which his 
enemies used around the cross ? Did he concert with them 



ETIDEXCE mOM PROPHECY. 269 

what should be given him to drink ? Was it by pre-arrange- 
ment with the Roman soldiers that not a bone of him was 
broken ? Such pre-concert was manifestly, in the nature of 
the case, impossible. But if it did not exist, there is in the 
fulfilment of so many minute predictions an irresistible proof 
that the Bible is the Word of God. Who else than God could 
have fore-known that these events were to happen in the his- 
tory of an individual — events altogether unparalleled in the 
history of any other person ? Who else than the Supreme 
Ruler of all could have effected the minute and literal veri- 
fication of these predictions ? 

We proceed now to a brief consideration of the predictions 
regarding the dispersion of the Jews, and here we shall do 
little else than avail ourselves of the labours of Dr Keith. 
Let us first give from the Old Testament scriptures the words 
of the prophecy. 

*' I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out 
a sword after you ; and your land shall be desolate, and your 
cities waste. And upon them that are left of you I will send 
a faintness into their hearts, in the lands of their enemies ; 
and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them ; and they 
shall flee as fleeing from a sword ; and they shall fall when 
none pursueth ; —and ye shall have no powder to stand before 
your enemies. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and 
the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are 
left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' 
lands ; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, shall they 
pine away with them. And yet for all that, when they be in 
the land of their enemies, T will not cast them away, neither 
will I abhor them to destroy them utterly. — And the Lord 
shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few 
in number among the heathen whither the Lord shall lead 
you. — The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine 
enemies ; thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee 
seven ways before them, and shalt be removed into all the 
kingdoms of the earth. — The Lord shall smite thee with 
madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart ; and thou 
shalt grope at noon-day as the blind gropeth in darkness, and 
thou shalt not prosper in thy ways ; and thou shalt be only 
oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. 



270 ETIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another peo- 
ple — there shall be no might in thine hand. The fruit of thy 
land and all thy labours shall a nation whicb thou knowest 
not eat up ; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed 
alway ; so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes 
which thou shalt see. The Lord shall bring thee unto a na- 
tion which neither thou nor thy fathers have known ; — and 
thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword 
among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. Because 
thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with 
gladness of heart for the abundance of all things ; therefore 
shalt thou serve thine enemies w^hich the Lord shall send 
against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and 
in want of all things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon 
thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. And the Lord will 
make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even 
great plagues and of long continuance. — All these curses shall 
come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee ; — 
and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and 
upon thy seed for ever. And it shall come to pass, that, as 
the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply 
you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to 
bring you to nought ; and ye shall be plucked from off the 
land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall 
scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth 
even unto the other. And among these nations shalt thou 
find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest ; but 
the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing 
of eyes, and sorrow of mind ; and thy life shall hang in doubt 
before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have 
none assurance of thy life. In the morning, thou shalt say. 
Would God it were even ! and at even thou shalt say, Would 
God it were morning ! for the fear of thine heart wherewith 
thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou 
shalt see.' 

" The writings of all the succeeding prophets abound with 
similar predictions. * I will cause them to be removed into 
all kingdoms of the earth. I will cast them out into a land 
that they know not, where I will show them no favour. I will . , 
feed them with wormwood, and give them water of gall to ^ 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 271 

drink. 1 will scatter them also among the heathen, whom 
neither they nor their fathers have known. — I will deliver them 
to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their 
hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in 
all places whither I shall drive them : and I will send the 
sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they be 
consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their 
fathers. I will bereave them of children : I will deliver them 
to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, 
and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among 
all the nations whither I have driven them. — I will execute 
judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter 
into all the winds. — T will scatter them among the nations, and 
disperse them in the countries. — They shall cast their sil- 
ver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed ; their 
silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the 
day of the wrath of the Lord ; they shall not satisfy their souls, 
neither fill their bowels, because it is the stumbling-block of 
their iniquity. — I will sift the house of Israel among all na- 
tions, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least 
grain fall upon the earth. Death shall be chosen rather than 
life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, 
which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, 
saith the Lord of hosts. They shall be wanderers among the 
nations. — Make the heart of this people fat, and make their 
ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, 
and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and 
convert and be healed. Then said I, Lord how long ? And 
he answered. Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, 
and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 
and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a 
great forsaking in the midst of the land. — Though they go 
into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the 
sword, and it shall slay them ; and I will set mine eyes upon 
them for evil, and not for good. But he that scattereth Is- 
rael will gather him and keep him. — But fear not thou, my 
servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, Israel ; for, behold, I 
will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of 
their captivity. — I will make a full end of all the nations 
whither I have drirdn thee ; but I will not make a full end of 



272 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

thee, but correct thee in measure ; jet will I not utterly cut 
thee off, or leave thee wholly unpunished. — The children of 
Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a 
prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and 
without an ephod, and without teraphim. Afterward shall 
the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and 
David their king ; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness 
in the latter days.' 

" All these predictions respecting the Jews are delivered 
with the clearness of history and the confidence of truth. 
They represent the manner, the extent, the nature, and the 
continuance of their dispersion, their persecutions, their blind- 
ness, their sufferings, their feebleness, their fearfulness, their 
pusillanimity, their ceaseless wanderings, their hardened im- 
penitence, their insatiable avarice, and the grievous oppres- 
sion, the continued spoliation, the marked distinction, the uni- 
versal mockery, the unextinguishable existence, and unlimited 
diffusion of their race. They were to he plucked from off 
their own land, smitten before their enemies, consumed from 
off their oivn land, and left feiv in number. The Romans de • 
stroyed their cities and ravaged their country, and the inhabi- 
tants who escaped from the famine, the pestilence, the swxrd, 
and the captivity, were forcibly expelled from Judea, and fled 
as houseless wanderers into all the surrounding regions. 
The cities shall be tuasted ivithout inhabitant. Every city 
shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. They were 
rooted out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great 
indignation, — A public edict of the emperor Adrian rendered 
it a capital crime for a Jew to set a foot in Jerusalem ; and 
prohibited them from viewing it even at a distance. Hea- 
thens, Christians, and Mahometans have alternately possessed 
Judea. It has been the prey of the Saracens ; the descend- 
ants of Ishmael have often overrun it; the children of Israel 
have alone been denied the possession of it, though thither they 
ever wish to return, and though it forms the only spot on 
earth where the ordinances of their religion can be observed. 
And, amidst all the revolutions of states, and the extinction 
of many nations, in so long a period, the Jews alone have not 
only ever been aliens in the land of their fathers, but when- 
ever any of them have been permitted, at any period since 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 273 

the time of their dispersion, to sojourn there, thej have experi- 
enced even more contumelious treatment than elsewhere. Ben- 
jamin of Tudela, who travell-d in the twelfth century through 
great part of Europe and Asia, found the Jews everywhere 
oppressed, particularly in the Holy Land. And to this day 
(while the Jews who reside in Palestine, or who resort thither 
in old age, that their bones may not be laid in a foreign land, 
are alike ilhtreated and abused by Greeks, Armenians, and 
Europeans), the haughty deportment of the despotic Mussul- 
man, and the abject state of the poor and helpless Jews, are 
painted to the life by the prophet. The stranger that is 
vjithin thee shall get up above thee very high, a,nd thou shalt 
come down very loiu, 

" But the extent is still more remarkable than the manner 
of their dispersion. Many prophecies describe it^ and fore- 
told, thousands of years ago, wiiat we now^ behold. They 
have been scattered among the nations — among the heathen — 
among the people, even from one end of the earth unto the 
other. They have been removed into all the Jcingdo7ns of the 
earth; the ivhole remnant of than have been scattered into 
all the ivinds : they have been dispersed throughout all coun- 
tries, and sifted among the nations like as corn is sifted irh 
a sieve, and yet not the least grain has fallen upon the 
earth : though dispersed throughout all nations, they have 
remained distinct from them all. And there is not a country 
on the face of the earth where the Jews are unknown. They 
are found alike in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. They 
are citizens of the world without a country. Neither moun- 
tains, nor rivers, nor decerts, nor oceans, which are the boun- 
daries of other nations, have terminated their wanderings. 
They abound in Poland, in Holland, in Russia, and in Tur- 
key. In Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Britain, they 
are more thinly scattered. In Persia, China, and India, on 
the east, and on the west of the Ganges, they sire feiv in num- 
ber among the heathen. They have trod the snows of Sibe- 
ria, and the sands of the burning desert ; and the European 
traveller hears of their existence in regions which he cannot 
reach, even in the very interior of Africa, south of Timbuctoo. 
From Moscow to Lisbon, from Japan to Britain, from Borneo 
to Archangel, from Hindostan to Honduras, no inhabitant of 

NO. XVIII. 



274: EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

any nation upon the earth would be known in all the interven- 
ing regions but a Jew alone. 

^' But the history of the Jews throughout the whole world, 
and in every age since their dispersion, verifies the most mi- 
nute predictions concerning them ; and to a recital of facts 
too well authenticated to admit of dispute, or too notorious for 
contradiction, may be added a description of them all in the 
very terms of the prophecy. In the words of Basnage, the 
elaborate historian of the Jews, " Kings have often employed 
the severity of their edicts, and the hands of the executioner, 
to destroy them ; the seditious multitude has performed mas- 
sacres and executions infinitely more tragical than the princes. 
Both kings and people, heathens. Christians, and Mahometans, 
who are opposite in so many things, have united in the design 
of ruining this nation, and have not been able to effect it. 
The bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, has always burnt 
without consuming. The Jews have been driven from all 
places of the world, which has only served to disperse them in 
all parts of the universe. They have, from age to age, run 
through misery and persecution, and torrents of their own blood. 
Revolt is natural to the oppressed ; and their frequent 
seditions were productive of renewed privations and distresses. 
Emperors, kings, and caliphs, all united in subjecting them to 
the same ^iron yoke/ 

" But the predictions rest not even here. It was distinctly 
prophecied that the Jews would reject the gospel ; that from 
the meanness of his mortal appearance, and the hardness of 
their hearts, they would not believe in a suffering Messiah ; 
that they tuould he smitten ivith blindness and astonishment 
of heart ; that they ivoidd continue long, having their ears 
deaf their eyes closed, and their hearts hardened ; and that 
they ivould grope at noon-day as the blind gropeth in dark- 
ness. And the great body of the Jewish nation has continued 
long to reject Christianity. They retain the prophecies, but 
discern not their light, having obscured them by their traditions. 
Many of their received opinions are so absurd and impious, 
their rights are so unmeaning and frivolous, their ceremonies 
are so minute, frivolous, and contemptible, that the account 
of them would surpass credulity, were it not a transcript of 
their customs and of their manners, and drawn from their own 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 2^5 

authorities. No words can more strikingly or justly repre- 
sent tlie contrast between their irrational tenets, their de- 
graded religion, their superstitious observances, and the dic- 
tates of enlightened reason and of the gospel which they 
vilify, than the emphatic description, They grope at noon-day, 
as the hlincl gropeth in darhiess. And if any other instances 
be wanting of the prediction of events infinitely exceeding 
human foresight, the dispositions of all nations respecting them 
are revealed as explicitly as their own. That the Jews have 
been a proverb, an astonishment, a hy-word, a taunt, and a 
hissing among all nations, — though one of the most won- 
derful of facts — unparalleled in the whole history of man- 
kind, and as inconceivable in its prediction as miraculous in 
its accomplishment, — it is a truth that stands not in need of 
any illustration or proof, and of which witnesses could be 
found in every country under heaven. Many prophecies con- 
cerning the Jews, of more propitious import, that yet remain 
to be accomplished, are reserved for testimonies to future 
generations, if not to the present. But it is worthy of re- 
mark, as prophesied concerning them, that they have 'Jioif been 
xitterly destroyed, though a full end has been made of their 
enemies ; that the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, 
the Romans, though some of the mitrhtiest monarchies that 
ever existed, have not a single representative on earth ; while 
the Jews, oppressed and vanquished, banished and enslaved, 
and spoiled evermore, have survived them all, and to this hour 
overspread the world. Of all the nations around Judea, the 
Persians alone, who restored them from the Bubylonish cap- 
tivity, yet remain a kingdom." 

It is one advantage of these predictions, that their fulfil- 
ments are recorded in the histories of all nations, and that with 
our own eyes we can see at least a part of the miracle per- 
formed. It stands forth in the history of the world as a fact 
altogether singular, that the Jews, scattered every where, have 
everywhere remained distinct. We are furnished with many in- 
stances of empires overthrown — of countries changing their 
population, their language, their manners. But the conquered 
people have everywhere been either exterminated, or become 
amalgamated with the conquerors. The Jews alone have re- 
mained apart — have found their way every where — have beeu 



276 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in all lands in the same depressed condition, and have remained 
the same in their character and habits. These facts, as well as 
the yet unfulfilled predictions regarding them, seem very 
plainly to indicate that they are yet to have a separate national 
existence — that they will yet be gathered from all lands — and 
reinstated in more than their ancient glory in the place of their 
fathers' pilgrimage. And this marvellous issue of all their 
wanderings, when it is realised, may be one of the subordinate 
agents in overcoming the incredulity of a faithless age, and so 
of bringing about contemporaneously the revival of a heart- 
felt religion, and converting the kingdoms of this world into 
the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. 

Let us now look for a little to the prophecies regarding the 
destruction of Jerusalem. These are to be found in the gos- 
pels of Matthew and Luke, and are as follows : — 

*' * And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple ; and 
Ms disciples came to him, for to shew him the buildings of the 
temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these 
things ? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one 
stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And as 
he sat upon the Mount of Oiives, the disciples came untohira 
privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be ? and 
what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the 
world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed 
that no man deceive you ; for many shall come in my name, 
saying, I am Christ ; and shall deceive many. And the time 
draws near ; and ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, 
— or commotions : these things mast first come to pass, but 
the end is not yet. Nation shall rise against nation, and 
kingdom against kingdom ; and great earthquakes shall be in 
divers places, v.nd famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights; 
and great signs shall there be from heaven. All these things are 
the beginning of sorrows. But, before all these things, shall 
they lay their hands upon you, a.nd persecute you, delivering 
you up to the synagogues and into prisons, being brought be- 
fore kings and rulers for my name's sake. And many shall 
be offended. Ye shall be betrayed both by parents and bre- 
thren, and kinsfolk and friends; and some of you shall they 
cause to be put to death, and ye shall be hated of all men for 
my name's sake. But there shall not a hair of your head pe- 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 277 

rish. And many false prophets will arise and will deceive 
many ; and, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many 
shall wax cold. And the gospel must first be published 
among all nations, and then shall the end come. When ye, 
therefore, shall see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, and 
the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, and 
where it ought not, then let them which are in Judea flee to 
the mountains, and let him which is the midst of it depart out. 
Let him which is on the house-top not go down into the house, 
neither enter therein to take any thing out of his house. Nei- 
ther let him tbat is in the field turn back again for to take up 
his garment, for these are the days of vengeance. But woe 
unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in 
those days ; for there will be great distress in the land, and 
wrath upon this people ; and they shall fall by the edge of the 
sword, and shall be led captive into all nations. There shall 
be great tribulation, sucb as was not from the beginning of 
the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be ; and Jerusalem 
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the time of the 
Gentiles be fulfilled. This generation shall not pass away till 
all these things be done. 

*^ ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees ; fill ye up the mea- 
sure of your fathers. Behold, I send unto you prophets, and 
wise men, and scribes ; and some of them ye shall kill, and 
crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, 
and persecute them from city to city. All these things shall 
come upon this generation. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent 
unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children toge- 
ther, even as a hen gather eth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not ! Behold, your house is left unto you deso- 
late. For I say unto you. Ye shall not see me henceforth till 
ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
Lord. 

" ' When lie was come near, he beheld the city and wept 
over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
thy day, the things which belong to thy peace ! but now they 
are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, 
that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass 
thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee 



278 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

even with the ground, and tliy children within thee ; and they 
shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou 
knewest not the time of thy visitation.' 

" These prophecies, from the Old Testament and from the 
New, repel the charge of ambiguity. They are equally copious 
and clear. History attests the truth of each and all of them ; 
and a recapitulation of them forms an enumeration of the facts. 
False Christs appeared, Simon Magus boasted that he was 
some great one. Dositheus, the Samaritan, pretended that he 
was the lawgiver prophesied of by Moses. Theudas, promis- 
ing the performance of a miracle, persuaded a great multitude 
to follow him to Jordan, and deceived many. . . . There 
were ivars and riiinoiirs of wars ; nation rose against nation, 
and Jcingdom against Jcingdoni. The Jews resisted the erec- 
tion of the statue of Caligula in the temple ; and such was the 
dread of R-oman resentment, that the fields remained unculti- 
vated. At Csesarea, the Jews and the Syrians contended for 
the mastery of the city. Twenty thousand of the former were 
put to death, and the rest were expelled. Every city in 
Syria was then divided into two armies, and multitudes were 
slaughtered. Alexandria and Damascus presented a similar 
scene of bloodshed. About fifty thousand of the Jews fell in 
the former, and ten thousand in the latter. The Jewish na- 
tion rebelled against the Komans ; Italy was convulsed with 
contentions for the empire ; and, as a proof of the troublous 
and warlike character of the period, within the brief space of 
two years, four emperors, Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, 
suffered death. There ivere famines, pestilences, and earth- 
quakes in divers places. In the reign of Claudius Caesar 
there were different famines. They continued to be severe 
for several years throughout the land of Judea. Pestilence 
succeeded them. In the same reign there were earthquakes 
at Eome^ at Apamea, and at Crete. In that of Nero there 
was an earthquake at Campania, and another in which Lao- 
dicea, Hierapolis, and Colosse were overthrown, and others 
are recorded to have happened in various places, before the 
destruction of the city of Jerusalem. ' The constitution of 
nature was confounded for the destruction of men, and one 
might easily conjecture that no common calamities were por- 
tended.' And there were fearful sights and signs from hea- 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 279 

ven. Tacitus and Josephus agree in relating and in describ- 
ing events so surprising and supernatural, that their narrative 

perfectly accords with the previous prediction 

The disciples of Jesus were persecuted, i^nprisoned, afflicted^ 
and hated of all nations, for his name's sake, and many of 
them IV ere put to death. Peter, Simon, and Jude were cruci- 
fied ; Paul was beheaded ; Matthew, Thomas, James, Mat- 
thias, Mark, and Luke, were put to death in different coun- 
tries, and in various manners. There was a war against the 

very name Many shall he offended, and shall 

betray one another ; and the love of many shall ivax cold. 
The apostle of the Gentiles often complained of false brethren, 
that many turned away from him, and that he stood alone, 
forsaken by all, when lie first appeared before Nero. And 
Tacitus testifies that very many were convicted on the evi- 
dence of others who had previously been accused. But the 
gospel ivas published throughout the luorld, in defiance of all 
peril and persecution. In the age of the apostles, epistles 
were addressed to Christians at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Phi- 
lippi, Colosse, Thessalonica, and in Pontus, Galatia, Cappa- 
docia, Asia, and Bithynia Jerusalem was en- 
compassed ivith armies. The Roman armies, with their 
idolatrous ensigns, which were an abomination to the Jews, 
surrounded it ; but instead of being a signal for flight, this 
would naturally have implied the impossibility of escape, and 
the warning would have been in vain. Yet the words of 
Jesus did not deceive his disciples. Cestius Gallus, the Ro- 
man general, besieged Jerusalem ; but immediately after, con- 
trary to all human probability, an interval was given for 
escape. He suddenly and causelessly retreated, though some 
of the chief men of the city had offered to open to him the 
gates Upon the approach of Vespasian after- 
wards, multitudes fled from Jericho into the mountainous 
country. Thither, and to the city of Pella, fled all the dis- 
ciples of Jesus, as credible historians assert. And, amidst all 
the succeeding calamities, not a hair of their heads did perish. 
" There shall be great tribulation, such as luas not from 
the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be. 
There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon 
this people. These are the days of vengeance. Such are 



280 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

some of the words of Jesus, relative to the destruction of Jeru- 
salem; and all the previous prophecies regarding it were of 
the same sad import. The particulars of the siege are all re- 
lated by Josephus, and form a detail of miseries that admit 
not of exaggeration ; and which he repeatedly declares, in 
terms that entirely accord with the language of prophecy, are 

altogether unequalled in the history of the world 

Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the house as the 
high places of the forest. Within the circuit of eight miles, 
in the space of 'B.ve months, — foes and famine, pillage and pes- 
tilence within, — a triple wall around, and besieged every mo- 
ment from without, — eleven hundred thousand human beings 
perished, though the tale of each i,i them was a tragedy. Was 
there ever so concentrated a n3ass of misery ? Could any 
prophecy be more faithfully and awfully fulfilled ? 

** But the prophecies also mark minuter facts, if possible, 
raore unlikely to have happened. Jerusalem was to be 
ploughed over as a field ; to be laid even with the ground; of 
the temple one stone was not to be left upon another ; the 
Jews were to be few in number ; to be led captive into all na- 
tions ; to be sold for slaves and none would buy them. And 
each of these predictions was strictly verified. Titus com- 
manded the whole city and temple to be razed from the foun- 
dation. The soldiers were not then disobedient to their ge- 
neral. Avarice combined with duty and resentment: the 
altar, the temple, the walls, and the city, were overthrown 
from the base, in search of the treasures which the Jews, be- 
set on every hand by plunderers, had concealed and buried 
during the siege. Three towers and the remnant of a wall 
alone stood, the monument and memorial of Jerusalem ; and 
the city was afterwards ploughed over by Terentius Rufus." 

It should be carefully noticed as characteristic of these pro- 
phecies, that it is not simply the fact that Jerusalem should be 
besieged and conquered, which is foretold. That might have 
been guessed at without any superhuman sagacity, although 
at the time the predictions were uttered, there was no token 
of approaching war. But this is not the character of the pro- 
phecy. It delineates, as with the pen of an historian, the 
premonitions, rise, progress, pauses of the conflict — ■ its 
sanguinary character- — its unparalleled results — brought about 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPHECY. 281 

against the will of the conquerors. Such a prophecy — so cir- 
cumstantial in its details — so completely verified in all of them 
— must have proceeded from Him who is wonderful in counsel 
and excellent in working. 

The predictions regarding Antichrist are to be found scat- 
tered over various portions of the Old and New Testament. 
Time would fail us to recite, far more to examine and illus- 
trate, the prophecies of Daniel and John regarding the great 
apostacy. We content ourselves, therefore, with referring to 
the more brief statements contained in the Epistles of Paul. 
2 Thess. ii. 3-10, *' Let no man deceive you by any means, 
for that day shall not come except there come a falling away 
first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition ; 
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called 
God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the 
temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Hemember 
ye not that, when I was yet with you^ 1 told you these things ? 
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be re- 
vealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already 
work ; only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out 
of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed whom 
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and 
shall destroy with the brightness of his coming ; even him 
whose coming is after the working of Satan with all pov/er, 
and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of 
unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they received 
not the love of the truth that they might be saved." 1 Tim. 
iv. 1-3, " Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter 
times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing 
spirits and doctrines of devils (^. e.^ concerning demons, an- 
gels, or spirits of departed men), speaking lies in hypocrisy, 
having their conscience seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to 
marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God 
hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which 
believe and know the truth." 

These prophecies are sufiSciently specific in their statements, 
and have the advantage of not being expressed in figurative 
language. They indicate that a wicked system — a mystery 
of iniquity — shall be developed before the second coming of 
Christ, — that ^the systeui w^as already at work, existing in an 



282 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

embryo form, — that its full manifestation was hindered in the 
meantime, but that the obstacle would be removed. They tell 
us the place in which this wicked system shall spring up, and 
paint to us its leading features. The fulfilment of these pro- 
phecies is written in the history of the Papacy for more than 
one thousand years. Some of its earlier corruptions take 
their date from the apostolic age : they could not be fully dis- 
played till the Roman empire was overthrown. Then it be> 
gan to grow into magnitude and power. The wicked system 
is obviously predicted as an apostacy, for it is seated in the 
temple of God. This is the character of Popery, which has 
accomplished all the parts of the prediction in its wonderful 
history. It has opposed itself to God, and exalted itself above 
hira — its head has claimed and received the name of our Lord 
God the Pope. It has been and is distinguished by signs and 
lying wonders, and is the only system that is so, and its 
teaching and practices have been pre-eminently characterized 
by all deceivableness of unrighteousness. It has invented and 
upheld the doctrines of devils, that is, the worship of angels 
and departed saints. The lies it has spoken in hypocrisy are 
without number and without end. It has forbidden its priests 
to marry, and has forbidden to all, such marriages as the Scrip- 
tures allow. It has constituted its periodical fasts, and com- 
mands its victims to abstain from meats. In the Revelation 
by John, the seat of this mystery of iniquity is plainly and 
unequivocally intimated, as the city of the seven hills, the city 
which in the apostles' days reigned over the earth. In the 
same prophecy we can discern the division into kingdoms of 
modern Europe, and believers, on the ground of that record, 
are waiting in hope and prayer for the final overthrow of that 
system which has deceived the nations by its sorceries, and is 
drunk with the blood of the saints. 

Such are a few of the prophecies, and such the exact fulfil- 
ment of them. We have not exhausted — we have scarcely 
entered upon our theme. The Bible is full of prophetic an- 
nouncements, whose accomplishment is as striking as those we 
have noticed. The existing state of the land of Judea — the 
overthrow of the nations by which it was surrounded — the de- 
solation of Tyre, of Nineveh, of Moab, of Edom — the humi- 
liation of Egypt — all is written as with the pen of an histo- 



EVIDENCE FROM PROPRECY. 283 

rian. Many years ago, a French traveller, whose name 
stands high in the ranks of infidelity, visited the land of Judea. 
He had read of it in the ancient history of Israel as a fertile 
land — flowing with milk and honey. Yolney wrote his tra- 
vels, and truly described the country as he saw it — a waste, 
barren land, whose cities were only heaps of ruins. He had 
read the history of Israel, and he thought the publication of 
his travels would falsify the whole of that history. He found 
that the country was not at all like w^hat the Hebrews had 
found it to be. He had read the history — he had not read or 
studied the prophecies. His travels, designed to confute 
Christianity, afford one of its strongest confirmations. And I 
know few exercises more profitable to a mind tinged with un- 
belief than to read the prophecy in the Bible and to read at 
the same time its recorded fulfilment in the pages of Yolney. 
who describes the country almost in the very terms in which 
the prophets had declared it would be found. 

The evidence of prophecy is not complete. It is receiving 
fresh accessions in the events of every succeeding age. It is 
but as yesterday that the ruins of Nineveh have begun to be 
explored. And in the buried monuments of that ancient em.- 
pire, when the industry and ingenuity of men shall have mas- 
tered the language which is inscribed upon them, we shall find 
new confirmations, at once of the antiquity of Scrip>ture, and 
the truthfulness of its predictions. 

The evidence of prophecy is not complete. "We are await- 
ing its fulfilments on the field of m.odern Europe, whose des- 
tinies are written, and will one day be clearly read in it. 

These miracles of wisdom, so abundant and so unmistake- 
able, with what voice do they speak, what truths do they 
teach us ! The fulfilments are not accidental, and if not, this 
is God's word, the word of him who reigneth among the king- 
doms of men, and disposeth them as he will. And if, incited 
it may be by mere curiosity, you are induced to enter upon a 
field of inquiry so inviting, you will meet with a rich reward 
— the richest of all, if, subdued to reverence by feeling that 
you read the words of the Omniscient, He open your hearts to 
attend those things which are spoken in his word, and cause 
the light of the knowledge of his glory, in the face of Jesus 
Christ, to shine into them. 



( 284: ) 



LECTUEE XIII. 

EVIDENCES OF CHRISIIAXITY: 
AEGUMEXT FEOM ITS OEIGIX AXD SUCCESS. 

BY THE EEV. ALEX. HANNAY. 



The age in whicli Cliristianity originated is one of profound 
interest to the liistorical inquirer. In it are to be found the 
elements from which all subsequent ages have been fashioned. 
It presents to the investigator the kev by which he opens 
his way into the mysteries of modern history. But for that 
age, with its new truths, all after ages had been different. 
Whatever be thought of the religion which it introduced 
into society, it stands pre-eminent in historical interest ; for, 
whether Christianity be true or false, its influence upon the 
morality, and the science, and the general civilization of the 
race, has been so marked as to constitute the age in which it 
brought its elevating forces to bear on the human mind — 
the grand epoch in the history of man. The last eighteen 
centuries bear its impress. All that we most honour and 
admire in the institutions of this generation have their roots 
in it. 

To the devout and intelligent Christian, the age of primi- 
tive Christianity has peculiar attractions. He looks at it not 
with the unimpassioned eye of the mere historian : it is im- 
personated by his grateful veneration, and he bends as before 
a benefactor. In it he witnesses the first effects of the sys- 
tem which has attached his faith and won his love, as it 
broke forth upon society ; he has exhibited to his view its 
first practical embodiments ; and, as one is intensely interested 
in the anecdotes of a dear friend's early history, he gathers 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIX AND SLXCESS. 285 

up, with pious and enthusiastic zeal, the intimations which 
the imperfect records of the time have left, of its first fortunes. 
And his assiduous inquiries are amply repaid, not merely by 
the gratification of his devout curiosity, but by the confirma- 
tion of his faith ; for in the origin and early history of his 
religion, he finds satisfactory evidence that it is of God. It 
is true the Christian is not dependant, as former lecturers 
have shown, for his convictions of the truth of his religion 
upon a thorough appreciation of the historical evidence ; its 
intrinsic provisions may irresistibly commend themselves to 
his mind ; yet the discovery that the history of his religion 
from the beginning points to an origin above the world is of 
material use to him as a defence of his faith when it is at- 
tacked, and as an instrument of aggression by which in his 
turn he may attack its opponents. 

In this view, the argument from the origin and success of 
Christianity has been recommended to me as a fitting subject 
of lecture with which to terminate this course. I shall en- 
deavour to throw the argument into a series of observations. 

First. — Christianity, in the mode and circumstances of its 
origin, can be adequately accounted for only, on the supposi- 
tion that it came from God. 

Eighteen hundred years ago the light of Christianity burst 
upon the world. The period is distant, but its characteristic 
features are distinct. Darkness broods over much that inter- 
venes, but a strong light shines upon it — as when the sun 
gilds some distant spot with his beams, whilst dark clouds 
throw the observer and the intervening space into the shade. 
"We have abundant materials for just judgment as to the 
mode in which Christianity sprung up, and as to the circum- 
stances in which it was developed; and these it will be found 
fully sustain the high pretensions of the system. 

The sudden maturity of the Christian system declares its 
divine original. Minute elaboration and progressive develop- 
ment are the characteristics of human systems. !Man has to 
fight his way by painful struggles up to truth. We can 
trace the course of the human system-maker : it has stages. 
We can detect the first rude outline of his system, then, gra- 
dually, its filling-up. "We can follow him in the various steps 
of his induction, and see him register and cancel his decisions. 



286 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

He prunes and graffs at the suggestion of his neighbour. He 
lives not to complete his system ; he lays the foundation and 
another builds thereon ; or, if by the help of other minds in 
argumentative conflict, it does acquire something like com- 
pleteness under his hand, it is blurred by the traces of cor- 
rection and after-thought. Had Christianity been of human 
original, it would have borne these marks. In its higher 
speculations, we should have had faltering guesses ; in its 
lower doctrines, elaboration and finish ; in all, a progressive 
development. But when we turn to its birth-hour, we see in 
its originator none of this mental travail ; in itself, none of 
this early imperfection and subsequent growth. It is com- 
plete at the hour of its birth. In its announcement there is 
none of the obscurity of imperfect conception ; none of the 
modest hesitation or furious dogmatism of partial conviction ; 
none, in short, of the traces of gradual growth. There is a 
dignity, simplicity, and ease, in the discourses of its founder, 
which proclaim him master of his subject in all its bearings. 
Though he appeared as a man, his hearers felt that he 
spake as never man spake — as one having authority and not 
as the Scribes ; and we can find sufiicient reason for the 
contrast which they thus instinctively drew in the fact that 
his system in its clearness and fulness bore none of the ordi- 
nary petty marks of human ingenuity, but the broad sig- 
nature of God. I quote with much pleasure the language of 
Dr Channing, the celebrated Unitarian writer, who, although 
tainted with fatal heresy on the cardinal doctrines of Christi- 
anity, always thinks with singular accuracy, and writes with 
singula^r grace, when he breaks away from the immediate in- 
fluence of his frigid system. On this subject he says, " One of 
the great distinctions of the gospel is, that it did not grow. The 
conception which filled the mind of Jesus of a religion more spi- 
tual, more generous, comprehensive, and unworldly than Juda- 
ism, and destined to take its place, was not of gradual formation. 
We detect no sign of it, and no effort to realise it before his 
time ; nor is there a,ny appearance of its having been gradually 
matured by Jesus himself. Christianity was delivered from 
the first in its full proportions, in a style of singular freedom 
and boldness, and without a mark of painful elaboration. 
This suddenness with which this religion broke forth, this ab- 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIX AND SUCCESS. 287 

sence of gradual deyelopment, seems to me a strong mark of 
its divine original/' 

The circumstances of the world at the time Christianity 
appeared raise it above the suspicion of human origin. 
There was nothing in the state of society at that time out of 
which it could naturally have sprung, nothing in the senti- 
ments or characters of men which could have nursed it into 
maturity. Any human system on which you can ^x will be 
found to be not so much the out-birth of one individual mind 
as the sentiment or belief of a number of minds^ — the unuttered 
idea of a generation crystalised into system by the touch of 
some skilful magician. Your system-maker is at best the elu- 
cidator of certain things which begin to be clear to many of 
his fellows around him. He interprets the tendency of his 
age, seizes its spirit, and throws its beliefs or half-formed be- 
liefs into shape. Hence we are in the habit of accounting for 
systems by the spirit of the age in which the projectors lived, 
and we never fail to detect some predisjDosing cause in the 
belief, tastes, or character of their contemporaries. The 
highest external evidence of superhuman origin, which any 
system can give, is incongruity ivith all the circumstances in 
ivhich it appears. If there be nothing in the general character 
of the times capable of producing it, we say it is of a higher 
than human extraction. If it appear in full development, 
and yet have not grown among men, there is only one con- 
clusion open to us, — that it has been transplanted from another 
soil by an invisible hand. Xow Christianity presented itself 
in direct opposition to all the tendencies and characteristics 
of its age. It grew out of none of them, and it assimilated none. 
It judicially pronounced the condemnation of existing systems 
and prevalent usages, and scourged them into the shade, as its 
founder drove the profane money-changers from the temple. 
When launched upon the sea of time, it was greeted by no 
cheer — cheered by no smile. In the governments, in the phi- 
losophical systems, in the religions of the age, it found nothing 
congenial. All frowned upon it as an enemy. Its great 
founder was prepared for this. He warned the elect few who 
gathered round him at his command, that he " came not to 
send peace on earth but a sword.'' His religion was com- 
mitted to an exterminating war with the principles of existinii 



288 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

systems, and the false principles of human action. Had it 
been the natural product of these, had it grown up under their 
influence, it would have formed in them some element of con- 
geniality : the son would not thus have pointed the sword to 
the bosom of his father. 

I am aware that it is sometimes objected, that in the Roman 
empire, the systems of idolatry had then fallen into disrepute 
among the more intelligent, and that Christianity naturally 
sprung up amid their ruins. Now it is not to be denied that, 
at the time when Christianity was first proclaimed by its 
founder, there had been a general falling away from the hea- 
then worship ; but there is surely nothing in the wreck of one 
system to account for the springing up of another. The events 
may be contemporary, or the one may succeed the other after 
a brief interval, but the one cannot be the direct eiFect of the 
other. The fall of some hoary edifice may be the occasion 
chosen for the erection of a new building on its site ; but the 
fall of the one building does not of itself account for the erec- 
tion of the other. Neither does the ruin of venerable idola- 
trous systems in itself account for the springing up of the fair 
edifice of Christian truth. There is one case, it must be ad- 
mitted, in which the disrepute and fall of those systems might 
be favourable to the origin and difiJ'usion of Christianity. 
Their disrepute and fall under a pure tendency of the general 
mind towards something more spiritual and ennobling, would 
be such a case. If they had been dishonoured and abandoned 
because men aspired after higher and purer conceptions of the 
Deity, and more just views of human life, then we might 
have supposed that the heathen systems naturally fell, and 
that Christianity naturally sprung up by the force of this 
aspiration ; that the glory of originating Christianity is, after 
all, human ; and that Jesus, in proclaiming his religion, only 
gave voice to a general, though up to his time inarticulate senti- 
ment. But when we turn to the facts of the case, we find that 
this was by no means the cause of the disrepute into 
which the idolatrous systems of Christ's time had fallen ; that 
the real causes were of a kind the most unfavourable that can 
be conceived for the conception or birth of such a system of 
religion as Christianity, What were these causes ? There 
was, in the first place, the ineffable impurity of the age. So- 



akgumext from its origin axd success. 289 

cietj was blacliened to its c ^re bj the most hideous immorali- 
ties. The passions of men ran wild in unbridled libertinism. 
Restraint was scorned; and although it was only the shadow 
of restraint which their religious systems imposed, the yery 
idea of religious dutj, which pointed to something dif- 
ferent from personal indulgence, was contemned. Even ob- 
scene idolatrous rites required some measure of religious awe 
and devoteeism in order to their permanence. In the Roman 
empire devoteeism was all but extinguished by the tide of 
immorality — the un visited temples bore witness. But was 
this a state of things likely to give natural rise to a pure re- 
ligion like Christianity ? Was the mad licentiousness which 
cast away the light restraints of the system by which it had 
been nursed, that its indulgences might not be interfered with, 
likely to dictate for itself a new religion like Christianity, \\ith 
its spiritual conceptions, with its horror of impurity, with its 
commands and motives to self-sacrifice ? To call light the 
birth and child of darkness merely because it succeeded it in 
the order of time, would not be a more egregious folly than 
to account for the rise of Christianity by the fall of Paganism, 
under a pressure of immoralitv. Ere primeval darkness 
could be chased away, we are sublimely informed hy the 
Jewish historian the creative word of God, "Let there be 
light," had to be spoken ; and can we suppose that anything 
short of this mighty interposition is to be assumed to explain 
the scattering of that moral darkness which hung over the 
world, when even the liberal rites of Paganism were esteemed 
a burden ? As to those who may be supposed to have been 
above their contemporaries in point of morality, the disrepute 
into which their religious systems had fallen with them, is to 
be accounted for by their philosophy. Philosophy was at that 
time assiduously cultivated. This fact is sometimes referred 
to as though it must have predisposed to Christianity, as though 
Christianity were a growth from philosophy. But a glance at 
the philosophies of the time will be sufficient to satisfy the in- 
genuous inquirer that, however much they are to be honoured 
as noble efforts of the human intellect, they cannot be regard- 
ed as having had any share in the production, or subsequently 
m the propagation of Christianity. Do we look to the sys- 
tem of Epicurus, then much in vogue ? Assuredly there was 

NO. XIX. 



290 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

nothing in it to predispose to Christianity ; for although the 
language of President Edwards be perhaps more than suffi- 
ciently severe, when he says that Epicurus was " the father 
of atheism and licentiousness,'^ and that his followers '' were 
the very worst of the heathen philosophers," his system cer- 
tainly proclaimed a theory, and raised a standard of virtue 
which must have led his followers to look upon the high and 
self-sacrificing morality of the Christian faith as stark mad- 
ness. " All other virtues," says Epicurus, as quoted by Sir 
James Mackintosh in his preliminary dissertation, *' grow from 
prudence : which teaches that we cannot live pleasurably with- 
out living justly and virtuously ; nor live justly and virtuously 
without living pleasureably." Epicurus held that pleasure 
was the grand end of life and virtue ; and that virtue was not 
virtue, but as it conduced to happiness. " Although, there- 
fore," says Sir James Mackintosh, '* Epicurus has the merit of 
having more strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with 
happiness, perhaps by the faulty excess of treating it as an 
exclusive principle ; yet his doctrine was justly charged with 
indisposing the mind to those exalted and generous senti- 
ments, without which no pure, elevated, bold, generous, or 
tender virtues can exist." To this it should be added that 
the Epicurean was a virtual atheist ; believed not in any active 
providence of God. and that the propriety of any action must, 
therefore, have been determined by a reference only to imme- 
diate results. How, then, could such a system predispose to 
Christianity ? The disciples must have looked upon the self- 
denying Christian as fanatical or insane ; and when Chris- 
tianity raised its standard of pure morality, based on the 
eternal and unalterable rectitude and obligation of virtue, re- 
jecting utility as a test, and pleasure as an end, the Epicurean 
must have felt that this was no child of his ; that it was a new 
enemy come to dispute the ascendancy of his system. Do we 
turn to the philosophy of Zeno — the Stoical philosophy ? We 
have, indeed, heard it spoken of as making, in the heroism 
with which it nerved its disciples, a wonderfully near approach 
to the m^orality of the gospel — an approach which might be 
supposed to predispose to Christianity. And there are per- 
haps few who have studied the history of the stern and lofty 
spirits which it nurtured without awe, not unmixed with admir- 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIN AND SUCCESS. 291 

atiorj. Yet, when we go near to the Stoic, we find that his is 
only the attitude of lofty virtue ; that the life of it is not there ; 
that he is apathetic, scornful, proud ; that he sympathises not 
with man in his sufferings and woes ; that haughty and con- 
temptuous self-reliance is the secret of his stern erectness : 
that he has nothing in common with Christianity or its hu- 
mane and magnanimous virtues. Stoicism, then, did nothing 
to prepare the world for Christianity — nothing to nurture the 
lofty ideas, or to suggest tke lofty morality of the gospel. X-jr 
can one look to the scepticism of that time for any trace of 
Christianity in the germ. The sceptical philosophy, as it is 
sometimes contradictorily called, had captivated a large num- 
ber of the cultivated minds of the age. But it looked with 
favour upon no positive system. It superciliously sneered at 
the pretensions of all. It questioned whether there was any- 
thing in the universe answering to the idea of truth, and 
boldly affirmed that the knowledge of it was unattainable if 
there was. The sceptics had seen one set of philosophers after 
another conduct their earnest investigations, each set conclud- 
ing with the announcement that it had found truth, and that 
it was an exclusive possession. They had become disgusted 
with the contradictions of philosophical schools and th.e uncer- 
taint}^ which seemed to attach to all philosophical enquiries : 
but instead of saying, ^^ God has not spoken yet, .we will wait," 
they committed themselves to a cold, sneering, universal scep- 
ticism, which looked with impartial contempt upon all positive 
systems, and upon all pretensions to a knowledge of truth. 
Assuredly there was no soil bere in which Christianity could 
germinate. Indeed we know, from an actual historical inci- 
dent, that the sceptics sneered at Christianity. At that 
melancholy mock trial of Jesus, we find the founder of Chris- 
tianity saying, " Every one that is of the truth heareth ray 
voice ;" to which Pilate, whom I take to have been one of the 
sceptics, sneeringly replied, catching at the word, '• What is 
truth ?'' — not in the way of ingenuous enquiry, as the words are 
sometimes interpreted, but in the way of haught3^ philosophic' 
sneer, as though he had said. Truth ! what is truth ? Art thou so 
simple as to speak about truth, and to expose thyself to peril 
for its sake, when the wise have all but unanimously decreed 
that there is no such thing ? This was the spirit of the seep-. 



292 EVIDENCES OF CHRiyTIAMTY. 

tics. It is too clear that Christianity had no congeniality with 
their destructive system. 

Indeed there can be nothing more certain, than that the 
• heathen world presented nothing in its philosophic and religious 
systems, or in its general morals, congruous to Christianity, 
or that can be intelligently adduced as accounting for its rise. 
It presents, so far as the heathen world is concerned, the 
highest external evidence of superhuman origin which any 
system can give — namely, incongruity icith all the circiDji- 
stances in ivhich it appeared. But shall we find anything; 
more favourable to its rise, more likely to originate and pro- 
mote it — more congruous, in Judea, where it was actually first 
proclaimed ? I need scarcely affirm to you, who must be so 
familiar with the Jewish history, and with the leading features 
of Jewish nationality in the time of Christ, that nothing could 
have been devised more utterly contradictory of Jewish habits 
and feelings, of Jewish sentiments and hopes, than the system 
of Jesus. Nor must I stay to illustrate the assertion. 1 only 
quote in confirmation of it one paragraph from a tract of Dr 
Channing on the evidences of Christianity. " You know the 
character, feelings, expectations of the descendants of Abraham 
at the appearing of Jesus ; and you need not be told that a 
system more opposed to the Jewish mind than that which he 
taught, cannot be imagined. There was nothing friendly to 
it in the soil or climate of Judea. As easily might the luxuri- 
ant trees of our forest spring from the sands of an Arabian 
desert. There was never perhaps a national character so 
deeply stamped as the Jewish. Ages after ages of unparalleled 
suffering have done little to wear away its indelible features. 
In the time of Jesus the whole influence of education and re- 
ligion was employed to fix it in every member of the state. In 
the bosom of this community, and amongst its humblest 
classes, sprung up Cliristiauity, a religion as unfettered by 
Jewish prejudices, as untainted by the earthly narrow views 
of the age, as if it had come from another world. Judaism 
was all around it, but did not mar it by one trace, or sully its 
brightness by a single breath." We cannot then look to 
Jewish any more than to heathen society for the cause of 
Christianity. Between it and every contemporary system and 
tendency, there was the most marked incongruousness. It 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIN AXD SUCCESS. 293 

could not be a spontaneous growth. There was no soil into which 
it could have struck down its roots — no climate which would 
have encouraged its expansion. We repeat, therefore, that 
Christianity in the mode and circumstances of its origin, can he 
accounted for only on the supposition that it came from God. 
The sceptic sometimes, not without a sneer, charges us with 
credulity ; but we are not credulous enough to believe that a 
system which threw at once its full splendours in upon the iin • 
warned darkness of the world, as though some sudden rent iii 
the veil of eternity had allowed its pure light to escape 
upon time — that a system which, at its advent, found no con- 
grous element in human systems, no congenial element in 
the aspirations of man ; which at once threw itself into 
an attitude of hostility against all existing systems, an- 
nounced itself as a regenerator, asserted its superiority, re- 
fused compromise and alliance, and shone forth at the very 
first with a brightness and a perfection to which subse- 
quent ages have not be?n able to add, which, indeed, the 
expansion of the human intellect, is only as it were enabling 
us no .V to begin to appreciate — we say, that we are not 
credulous enough to believe that such a system sprung from 
the earth. No ; it came down from heaven. We look back 
with reverence to Jesus and exclaim, " Yerily thou art a teacher 
come from God !*' 

Secondly, The early progress of Christianity can be ade- 
quately accounted for only on the supposition that it had such 
supernatural aids as only a divine system could have. 

Those of you who have familiarized your minds with the 
Xew Testament account of the early fortunes of Christianity, 
must have been often struck with the immense success attri- 
buted to the efforts of its first teachers. To collate the infor- 
mation on this point, incidentally scattered over the pages of 
the New Testament, would be a process too lengthy and te- 
dious for this place. Take this compendious summary of its 
early triumphs, " Before the end of thirty years it had spread 
itself through Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, almost all the nu- 
merous districts of the Lesser Asia, through Greece and the 
islands of the Egean Sea, the sea coast of Africa, and had 
extended itself to Rome and into Italy. At x\ntioch in Sy- 
ria, at Joppa, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Berea, Iconium. 



294 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Derbe, Antiocli in Pisidia, at Ljdda, Saron, the number of 
converts is intimated bj the expressions, ''a great Dumber,'' 
" great multitudes," ''much people/' Converts are mentioned, 
without any designation of their number, at Tyre, Ceserea, 
Troas, Athens, Philippi, Lystra, Damascus. During all this 
time Jerusalem continued not only the centre of the mission, 
but a principal seat of the religion ; for when Paul returned 
thither at this period, the other apostles pointed out to him as 
a reason for his compliance with their advice, '' how many my- 
riads there were in that city who believed.'* ( Pahy. ) But our 
knowledge of the early success of Christianity does not depend 
upon the historical fragments preserved in the Xew Testa- 
ment, which might be looked on with suspicion by those who 
do not believe in its inspiration. Xo sooner does the light of 
independent history dawn upon us than we find "the new and 
pernicious superstition," as heathen writers call it, spreading 
with astonishing rapidity, colonizing with its converts every 
part of the civilized world, baffling the attempts of hostile go- 
vernments to suppress it — altogether a strange element sgi- 
tuiing the bosom of every community ; with which the powers 
that then were knew not how to deal. Tacitus, a Roman his- 
torian, gives an account of a iire which happened in Rome in 
the tenth year of the reign of the emperor Nero, which was 
the thirtieth year after the ascension of Christ. Rumour had 
cliarged the emperor, a besotted and cruel man, with the in- 
cendiarism. To clear himself of this stain he caused the 
Christians to be impeached. Speaking of the Christians thus 
introduced into his narrative, the historian says, *' They had 
their denomination from Christus, who, in the reign of Tibe- 
rius, was put to death as a criminal by the Procurator Pontius 
Pilate. This pernicious superstition, though checked for a 
while, broke out again, and spread not only over Judea, but 
reached the city (Rome) also. At first they only were appre- 
hended who confessed themselves of that sect ; afterwards a 
vast multitude was discovered by them.'' This testimony 
from a reputable historian and an enemy, is of great import- 
ance in many respects : it conclusively shows that at this time 
Christianity, spreading out from Jerusalem, had reached the 
imperial city, and had there obtained a large number of ad- 
herents. There is another historical fragment, perhaps the 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIN AXD SUCCESS. 295 

most important which those early times have preserved for u 
— the letter of Pliny, the Roman governor of Pontus and 
Bithynia, to Trajan, the emperor of the day. Pliny, it seems, 
•lad been instructed to keep a strict guard against all secret 
societies. The Christian assemblies had been denounced to him 
as coming under his commission. On examination he found 
that if he was to proceed to extremes against the Christians he 
would have more work on hand than it was agreeable to think 
of. He wrote to the emperor stating what he had done in 
the matter, and craving directions. I quote the closing sen- 
tences, which bear directly upon our present enquiry. '' I 
thought proper to adjourn all further proceedings in this af- 
fair (of prosecuting Christians), in order to consult with you. 
For it appears to be a matter highly deserving your conside- 
ration, more especially as great numbers must be involved 
in the danger of these prosecutions, this inquiry having al- 
ready extended, and being still likely to extend to persons of 
all ranks and ages, and even of both sexes. For this conta- 
tagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has 
spread its infection among the country villages. Neverthe- 
less it still seems possible to remedy this evil, and restrain its 
progress. The temples, at least, w^hich were almost deserted, 
begin now to be frequented ; and the sacred solemnities, after 
along intermission, are again revived; while there is a gene- 
ral demand for the victims, which for sometime past have met 
but few purchasers. From whence it is easy to imagine what 
numbers might be reclaimed from this error if a pardon 
were granted to those who will repent." It is clear from 
this entire letter of Pliny and from the reply of Trajan, who 
rather counsels lenient measures, that Pontus and Bithynia 
had fallen into a very unmanageable state by this time, 
through the prevalence of Christianity, and that it began to 
be plain both to Pliny and his master that exterminating the 
heresy must be nearly equal to depopulating the district. 
The temples had been deserted ; the victims had for a length 
of time found no purchasers. In another part of the letter, 
he informs us that many of those whom he had examined had 
professed Christianity for twenty years. Pliny expresses a 
hope that the superstition might be restrained in its progress ; 
but fifty years later, we learn from a work of Lucian, that 



296 EVIDENCES or CHRISTIANITY. 

OTie Alexander, an impostor in the reign of Marcus Antoni- 
nus, complained that Pontus was full of atheists (deniers of 
the heathen gods), and Christians ; so that neirher the lenient 
nor the severe measures adopted against the Christians had 
been sufficient to shake them from their faith. And that this 
prevalence of Christianity was confined to any one district, 
we have not the slightest reason to believe. On the contrary, 
it is clear from many circumstances that the infection whs 
general. Justin Martyr, who wrote an apology for Chris- 
tianity in the early part of the second century, addressing the 
emperor, says, " There is not anywhere a race of men, whether 
of barbarians or Greeks, or by whatever name they may be 
called, whether erratic and houseless tribes, or herdsmen 
dwelling in tents, among whom are not offered, in the name 
of the crucified Jesus, prayers and thanksgivings to the Father 
and Maker of all." If it be said that this statement betrays 
colouring and rhetorical exaggeration, it must still be admitted 
hj every candid mind that it is a colouring and exaggeration 
into which the writer could never have been betrayed had Chris- 
tianity not made an astonishingly rapid and extensive pro- 
gress. Other evidences might be adduced, but I forbear. 
The general facts of the case are familiar to every mind. 
Christianity, originating in the dust, went forth in a few 
short years to empire. It emptied the schools of philosophy ; 
razed the temples of heathenism ; and, having leavened the 
mass of the population with its principles, sprung in the 
course of three centuries to the throne of the Caesars. 

But what use, it will be asked, can be made of this fact to 
prove that Christianity is of divine origin ? Is success to be 
regarded as a test of truth ? Is the winning-side always the 
right side ? Our unhesitating answer is, No. Truth is often 
in the minority. Error has often antiquity and the multitude 
on its side. Success is not a criterion of truth ; neither is 
failure an evidence of intrinsic weakness and injustice. Cir- 
cumstances must be taken into consideration. " Every case 
must be tried by its own merits. A just estimate of results 
can only be formed after a deliberate examination of all the 
circumstances under which success or failure may have oc- 
curred. In some cases, the success or failure may have been 
what we terra purely accidental, and then its causes vriL 



ARGUMEXT FROM ITS ORIGIX AND SUCCESS. 297 

usually be sufficientlj apparent ; in others, success may have 
been so improbable, so totally precluded upon any human 
calculation, and so contrary to all historical analogies, as to 
thrust upon us the conclusion, that there was something ex- 
traordinary or even miraculous in the result ; or that the 
peculiar nature and extent of the success, all circumstances 
considered, imply something miraculous and divine in the 
causes from which it proceeded." fRedford's Holy Saipture 
Verified.) We do not argue here, then, that because Chris- 
tianity met with remarkable success in its early history, it 
must be divine. Our argument is, that, considering all the 
circumstances in which that success was achieved, it must be 
divine. And here I beg your attention, 

1st, To the character of the truths which the Christian 
missionaries urged. One of the earliest and bravest cham- 
pions of the faith, one who struggled in the first and hottest 
of the fight, informs us that he and his coadjutors accom- 
plished that mighty revolution upon which we now look back 
with wonder, by preaching Christ crucified and raised from 
the dead. In writing to one of the early churches which he 
had founded, he reminds them that the gospel which he had 
proclaimed on the occasion of his first visit was, " that Christ 
died for our sins according to the Scriptures ; and that he 
was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to 
the Scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the 
Twelve ; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren 
at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, 
but some are fallen asleep." That is, Christ's death, as the 
Messiah, his resurrection, by miraculous interposithm of God; 
and the evidence of these facts formed the staple of apostolic 
preaching. With this all the historical notices of their la- 
bours which have come down to us perfectly agree. Xow, 
consider that these men, wherever they went, claimed for 
a despised and crucified Jew the honours of a divine mis- 
sion, and of personal Godhead, and that they appealed to recent 
matters of fact in proof of the justice of their claim. Thev 
did not indulge in abstruse speculations ; they did not pretend 
to solve recondite problems ; they based their religion upon a 
miraculous history — upon miraculous events then recent. We 
have seen how generally they were believed. Xow, how is 



298 EYIDEXCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

this to be accounted for ? If their statements of fact were 
false, the means of convicting them were at hand. These 
things had not been done in a corner. Contemporaries and 
eye-witnesses were still alive. But we find that even in 
Jerusalem, the very scene of the miraculous history to w^hich 
they appealed, thousands gave in their adhesion ; so that, 
thirty years after the commencement of the apostolic labours 
in that city alone, they could point to many myriads (tens 
of thousands) who believed. Now, how could so many men 
be deceived as to a matter of fact said to have taken place 
among themselves ? How could they have been brought to 
believe in this miraculous history, except by the most incon- 
testible evidence ? Nor was the case of the heathen nations 
^vho received this miraculous history much different. They, 
too, could exa^mine the evidence of the pretended facts. The 
scene of the history was not so distant ; they had their govern- 
ment officials there; they had numberless opportunities of 
communication ; they needed not to be imposed upon by the 
hardy assertions of impostors. Had the religion of Jesus been 
a matter of abstract truth and abstruse speculation — had it 
even been a bare matter of pretended revelation from God, 
like the system of Mahomet, I should not have thought of ad- 
ducing the fact of its wide early success as an evidence of its 
divinity ; but, when we reflect that the Christian system, to 
use the language of Paley, had " for its very basis and postu- 
latum a supernatural character ascribed to a particular per- 
son ;" that its truth depended entirely upon the truth of a 
matter of fact then recent, to which its advocates confidently 
appealed, which all w^ho heard them had the means of testing ; 
that a belief in this matter of fact speedily became quite ge- 
neral in the scene of its enactment, and in all contiguous 
countries ; incredulity itself must be driven to the conclusion 
that that matter of fact, that that miraculous history must 
have been true, which is in other words to affirm that the reli- 
gion which built itself up upon it is divine. It is to contra- 
dict all that we know of the laws of human belief to suppose 
that a religious system, which founds itself upon sensible mi- 
racles, which appeals to a miraculous history, could ever get 
established had it really no such ground to rest upon. As well 
might we suppose that a man could succeed in imposing a 



ARGUMEXT FROM ITS ORIGIN' AND SUCCESS. 299 

sjstein upon us, founded upon a matter of fact said to have 
transpired in our own generation and at our own doors, and 
under the gaze of many of our contemporaries, when no such 
matter of fact actually ever did transpire — when we have, on 
the contrary, the means of disproving the assertion — as sup- 
pose that a religion appealing, like Christianity, to recent mi- 
racle, could succeed in obtaining the suffrages of those to 
whom it appealed, if no such miracles as it adduced in evi- 
dence, or as were implied in its fundamental doctrines^ had 
ever been performed. The early success of Christianity, then, 
when we consider the character of the truths on which it 
rested, becomes a strong evidence of its divinity. It rested 
on miracles, such as God only could inspire power to perform 
— in a miraculous history, such as only the founder of a di- 
vine system could exhibit ; and these were widely credited at 
the time when the materials fur confutation, if such existed, 
must have been fresh, and abundant, and open to all, 

I must here beg your attention, secondly, to the character 
of the early advocates of Christianity. 

The Xew Testament account of them is, that they were 
men without name, letters, refinement, or influence. One of 
themselves, writing of the advocates of the system, says, " that 
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound 
the things that are wise ; and God hath chosen the weak 
things of the world to confound the things that are mighty ; 
and base things of the world, and things which are despised, 
hath God chosen, and things which are not. to bring to nought 
things which are.'^ This is no ostentatious depreciation of 
the early promoters of Christianity, designed with the view 
of increasing the wonder of its triumphs. For, not only do 
v;e know by the evangelical narrative that the appointed 
apostles of Christianity were selected from the hard-handed 
sons of toil, and from a class of them whose pursuits seem little 
fitted to elevate and discipline the mind, who have, in fact, 
in all ages been referred to as the very type of rude and un- 
trained humanity ; but the terms of contempt which their Pa- 
gan and Jewish enemies apply to them shew that no more fa- 
vourable view could have been given of their strength and 
respectability (as the world esteems respectability) than has 
been given by their own historian. The Toldoth of Huldric 



300 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 

(see Shepherd's "Divine Origin of Christianity") terms the 
disciples ''vain and futile men," and the apostles ''those 
worthless persons." " It is said in anotlier Jewish book, 
' then many low persons of our nation attached themselves to 
Jesus.'" Celsus says "that Jesus, taking to himself ten 
or eleven ahjects, vile publicans, and sailors, went about wi;h 
them" — " that he took only ten abandoned mariners and pub- 
licans, and persuaded not even all of them." Julian writes 
thus : " If there appear any one recorded (as a Christian) of 
the persons of note or eminence at that day, under Tiberius 
and Claudius, when these things happened, judge me on every 
subject a deceiver." Among the Pagans the Christians were 
derisively called " pupils of the illiterate and the fishermen." 
Such, then, according to their own account, and the account of 
their enemies, were the early promoters of Christianity. I 
am aware that exception is sometimes taken on behalf of 
Paul. It is said he at least was learned, and that not only in 
the dogmas of the Pharisaic superstition, but also in the hu- 
manizing literature of Greece. And at times this is main- 
tained by Christian writers with an unction which seems to 
betray a feeling on their part that it is rather disreputable to 
Christianity that its first promoters were ignorant and unschooled 
men, and that it would be some relief if it could only be made out 
that one at least of their number was a man of learning, who 
had studied the poets and philosophers of that time, and could 
appreciate their beauties, but had thrown all aside in his ad- 
miring love of the Christian scheme. But the evidence of 
Paul's polite erudition is sadly deficient. In three instances — 
Acts xvii. 28 ; 1 Cor. xv. 33; Titus i. and xii. — he quotes 
from Greek poets ; but there is no evidence that he was ac- 
quainted with the originals of them. The quotations seem 
to have passed into proverbs. Certain happy phrases of the 
leading thinkers of a country thus pass into currency, and the 
fact of a man's using them, in speech or writing, is no more evi- 
dence of his acquaintance with tbe original than the fact of a 
man's being found with a shilling in his pocket, is an evidence 
th^t he has immediate connection with the mint. We have 
thus heard phrases, the originals of which are to be found in 
our own standard dramas, quoted in conversations, and ser- 
mons, and even in prayers, by men who would have been hor- 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIN AND SUCCESS. 301 

rified out of their propriety, had they supposed that they were 
adopting anything, even a word, from a source so unsanctified. 
Except in Kabbinical lore Paul does not seem to have been a 
learned man in any sense that vi^ould warrant us to modify the 
statement that the early propagators of Christianity were il- 
literate and obscure persons. 

With such abettors, then, Christianity began its career. 
With w^hat confidence would we predict failure of any cause, 
however good, which we saw committed into such hands now. 
We would say to the projector, get men of argumentative skill — 
men of fervid eloquence — men of rhetorical tact — men of re- 
puted learning and respectability — secure the patronage of some 
great name — and your cause will have some chance; commit 
it to these men, and it requires no prophet to predict your failure. 
Yet thus did Christianity begin its fortunes ; we have seen with 
what success. It is proper to consider with what antagonist 
forces th'ese unskilled (naturally) men had to contend. There 
w^as against thera the whole force of the professional mind and 
learning of Judea. The priests, whose personal interests w^ere 
endangered; the Scribes, who looked with pedantic contempt 
upon the uncouth modes of the new teachers ; the Pharisees, 
who, in the spiritof ascendant party, frowned upon everything 
which did not originate wdth themselves, and who still winced 
under the galling castigation which Jesus visited upon their 
sanctimonious formalism, banded themselves into a league of 
inextinguishable hatred, and enraged active opposition. The 
learning, influence, and professed piety of the time, rose into 
exceeding madness against the infant religion and its ap- 
parently helpless advocates. All that the argument of 
the sedate, the sneer of the witty, the dictum of the learned, 
and the rage of the influential could supply, was brought 
into the controversy against these simple men. In the 
heathen districts w^hich they visited, the opposition was not 
less severe and animated. The schools ^vere against 
them — the stern Stoic, the voluptuous Epicurean, the sneering 
Sceptic — all were against them. The mass of the people, sunk 
into the obscene depths of immorality, were against them. Im- 
perial and subordinate authority and power, regarding them 
as disturbers of the peace, and their doctrine as a pestilent 
heresy, which had a contagion about it to which they were 



302 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

entire strangers, and which was not safe for any government, 
were against them. At the commencement of their career, 
the opposition monopolised, in short, the intellect, the learning, 
the wit, the wealth, and the power of the civilized world. 

Thus opposed, and qualified as we have seen, they went into 
the world. They had nothing to declare hut a religion which 
must have worn a most repulsive aspect to the sensual and 
selfish masses to whom they declared it. They had no name 
to pronounce that would secure respectful attention — no name 
but that of a despised, ignoble, and crucified Jew — no ap- 
pliance but the artless, and, as it would seem, barbarous story 
of the cross. Yet, notwithstanding all this array of obstacles , 
this inherent weakness, this apparent insufi&ciency of means, 
nothing could arrest their triumphant progress. Two things 
surprise us — the attitude of the men, and their unparalleled 
success. 

Their attitude ! Who would have wondered if, finding such 
odds against them, these simple-minded and unequipped men 
had gone back to their occupation, and left the cause to its own 
resources ? Would it not have answered our expectations if, af- 
ter their master was removed from them, finding such difiSculties 
in their way, they had escaped from their temporary notoriety 
into the obscurity of their original station? But what is our 
surprise when we see them at once, or nearly at once, cast ofif 
the narrow prejudices which they had so often betrayed during 
the life of their master ; when we see their minds suddenly ex- 
pand to the most spiritual and sublime conceptions of their re- 
ligion ; when we see them manifest a heroism and intrepidity 
Tvhich contrasts strongly vrith their frequent cowardice in the 
time of their master's trials and suffering, and which entitles 
them to a place among the greatest of men ; when we see that 
they plead eloquently with the multitude, argue subtlely with 
the learned, declaim with readiness and smiting force when 
dragged to the bar of justice, and exhibit a versatility to which 
we find no parallel in the history of the leaders of any revo- 
lution ! , How are we to explain tbe change ? Had there 
been no revelation on the subject, we would have said these 
men are supernaturally sustained ; and we are fully prepared 
to find those promises of supernatural aid and direction with 
which the last discourses of their Lord abound. 



ARGUMENT FHOM ITS ORIGIN AND SUCCESS. 303 

Then their success I Who would have been surprised to 
find them beaten from the field? But, no; Christianity 
marches forth with the air of a conqueror in everj direction. 
Governors find their provinces unmanageable, and appeal to 
their masters in the city. The emperors fulminate decrees, 
and brandish the sword. Still it grows, and silently but 
surely seeks its way in the bosom of society. The myrmidons 
of power are summoned, and each with the brand of persecu- 
tion flaming in his hand, is sent to hunt, and persecute, and 
kill the Christians. " Thousands and tens of thousands are 
butchered, but it is all of no avail. The indomitable spirit of 
apostacy from superstition still prevails. The name of the 
despised and crucified Xazarene confounds the oracles, and 
outrivals all the attractions of the temples, and all the influ- 
ence of the priests and magistrates. Other counsels are at 
length adopted. Through fear, edictsof a more tolerant cha- 
racter are tried. This method, however, is just as unsuccess- 
ful as the former. Xothing can induce the people to worship 
the idols, or frequent the temples. Christianity marches 
forth, with rapid strides, in every direction. It invades the 
forum, the army, the palace, the schools ; till at length, with- 
out sword or power, or patronage or wealth, and with no name 
to recommend it but that of the despised Xazarene, it hus 
fairly won a majority of the population to the faith, and ail 
hope of its suppression finally expires before the irresistible 
advances of its peaceful banner." How, I ask, are we to ac- 
count for this success ? The fishermen of Galilee triumphant 
over the power of intellect, and wealth, and empire ! The 
history of no other system furnislies a parallel. Xo ; for no 
other system is divine. Xo other system could present the 
same tokens of truth, the same signs of God. The success of 
the apostles is accounted for hj these circumstances, — their 
religious system founded itself upon matters of miraculous 
fact which were demonstrable; the teachers of it announced 
the system, wonders, and signs from God following ; the sys- 
tem was found, on investi_raiion, to be so pure and sublime, 
so fitted to projuote individual and social well-being, so far 
in advance of every human system, that a conviction of its 
divine origin was awakened ; and God himself co-operated, 
communicating an impetus, and guiding it forth to victory. 



304 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAMTT. 

These circumstances explain the success of Christianity — if 
they be not admitted, its success in the circumstances cannot 
be explained. The infidel may obstinately deny these facts, 
but he has then on his hand a perplexing historical anomaly. 
He finds that all new systems, which deal with the under- 
standing and the hearts of men, even those whose advocates 
have eloquence, and sophistry, and power, make but slow, 
and, for a length of time, all but inapj)reciable progress ; 
whilst Christianity, a friendless, uneloquent, and despised 
system, rising without observation in the meanest envi- 
ronments, goes forth with irresistible energy and silent 
power, attracting many to goodness and to God, and sub- 
duing, in an incredibly short space of time, the mass of 
intelligent minds to a confession of its authority. We 
believe that no ingenuous man, divesting his mind of bias 
against Christianity, can study the style and rapidity of its 
early progress, duly considering all the circumstances, without 
rising from the study with the conviction in his mind, and 
the exclamation on his lips, there is something here that is 
more than human. 

The space w^ill not allow full discussion of a third observa- 
tion, namely, the subsequent success of Christianity can be ac- 
counted for only on the supposition of its divine origin. I pre- 
sent the merest outline of the argument. In arguing a former 
particular, I admitted that success, in itself considered, was no 
criterion of truth. Now, there is a sense in which this is not 
true. Nothing but truth can ultimately succeed. Error may 
triumph for a day ; and, therefore, temporary success is not of 
itself conclusive evidence of truth. Truth, however, will 
ultimately commend itself, will alone ultimately succeed ; 
and were we able to judge of ultimate success, it might be 
taken as a criterion of truth. But there may be a success ap- 
proaching the ultimate which shall be nearly as conclusive in 
argument. A system may succeed, for instance, so invariably 
in all different circumstances — may so adapt itself to every 
changing phase of society — may for such a length of time re- 
tain its freshness and its youth, whilst everything around it 
waxes old, as to give at once a satisfiictory evidence of its truth, 
and a secure pledge of ultimate triumph. Xow this, as it seems 
to me, is the case of Christianity. Its history has not been all 

y2> 



ARGUMENT FROM ITS ORIGIN AND SUCCESS. 305 

pleasing. There have been times in which it was corrupted and 
eclipsed — times in which its great distinguishing truths were en- 
tombed within the very precincts of the church. Its progress has 
not continued on the grand scale of the first ages. But in a 
deeper view it has been universally successful. It has never 
been superseded ; it has never betrayed marks of age or de- 
cline ; it has always adapted itself to the successive ages of 
the race's progression in a way which shews that it is from 
the ** Father of the ages.'' What progress has not the world 
made since Christianity was originated? Systems of opinion, 
philosophies, and other things w^hich answered men then, have 
become antiquated, the classics of former systems of opinion 
have died ; but the Christian system has never been outrun ; 
the world has only been coming up to it. No sudden revolu- 
tion has ever thrown a community into a position in which 
Christianity was unfit for it. " Framed in a spirit prophetic 
of the deepest future, yet adapting itself to every successive 
age as though it had been made specifically for that age,'' 
it has in the course of its history given the most conclusive 
evidence, that it came from him who knows man, and all his 
possible predicaments, and who sees the end from the be- 
ginning. This is the characteristic of truth, that it belongs 
to no age, but equally to all ages ; that it neither grows, nor 
diminishes, nor alters, and yet that it is equally adapted to 
man in all his growths and changes. This peculiarizing feature 
the history of Christianity boldly presents. Institutions, 
churches, built upon it, have become old and died, but there 
was truth mixed with error in them ; it has risen imperishable 
above wreck and change, and even now, where it is not ac- 
knowledged, it gives law. The natural religionist does 
it honour, by furtively conveying its disclosures to complete 
and adorn his own system ; the infidel does it honour by laud- 
ing and practising its morality ; and on every hand, though it 
reign not in the hearts of the people, there are indicators which 
point to its milennial ascendancy and triumph, and assure 
the world of its divine original. 

This series of lectures, I understand, terminates this even- 
ing. Surely it is not too much to ask you not only to con- 
sider the arguments which have been night after night pre- 
sented here, with candour and patience, but to resolve, if 



306 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

a doubt remain in jour minds, not to rest satisfied until you 
have availed yourselves of every means of ascertaining the^ 
truth. I exhort every one to honest, fearless enquiry. I 
dread not the consequence. Every one has a right to think 
fearlessly ; but every one is bound to think honestly. There 
is no dishonesty more reprehensible than dishonest think- 
ing. In my own history there was a season ever me- 
morable to me, of darkness and doubt, in which I fought 
and struggled, and as it were gasped for life. I had got 
before a glimpse of the clear firmament of truth, and learn- 
ed the language of some of its glowing hieroglyphics ; but 
when I looked again, my first transports having subsided into 
silent love and wonder, a thick cloud canopy concealed it from 
my view. All was doubt ; it was an inexpressibly painful and 
critical struggle. At times I verged upon the dreary realms 
of denial ; and at times, when I thought I had obtained a 
secure footing in soul- satisfying belief, I was precipitated 
again into utter darkness, reduced to my original position of 
elemental inquiry, fighting with the spectres of unbelief, and 
convulsively grasping at what I scarcely believed to exist. 
My resolution was to act as though Christianity w^ere true till 
I could prove it to be false, and meanwhile carefully to exa- 
mine its claims. The result was a peace-giving conviction of 
the divinity of Christ's religion, which I cherish as my high- 
est blessing. I exhort all who doubt to the same inquiry ; in- 
genuously conducted it will yield the same result. 

And, brethren, professed believers of this faith, let us yield 
ourselves more entirely up to its elevating and expanding in- 
fluence ; let us seek to grasp the highest prizes which it holds 
out to our view ; to run up the shining pathway of progress 
to which it beckons us ; to live not to ourselves bat to him 
who died for us. 



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